Which Street Fighter 5 stories actually take place after the events of Third Strike?

For nearly two decades, the story within the world of Street Fighter remained confined by its existing timeline where Street Fighter 3: Third Strike remained as the last canonical events to take place — but did it really?

Street Fighter 5 Director Takayuki Nakayama recently revealed that some of the stories within the game actually extend past the end of Third Strike, but which ones are they and how many?

"Depending on the character, the story content [in SF5] varies from being basically at the same time as Street Fighter 3 or slightly after it," wrote Nakayama on Twitter as translated by our own Nicholas 'MajinTenshinhan' Taylor.

This statement took place at the same time he also gave away the name of Neo Shadaloo's gorilla member as well as more details about the organization via a conversation with a fan — and further solidifies what he said last year.

Interestingly, however, the director didn't specify which characters there exactly who fit the bill though we have some ideas.

Obviously, the main story of SF5 takes place firmly between the fourth and third numbered entries in the series with the presumed final downfall of Shadaloo, so we must instead look to the character stories.

When Nakayama first teased this new understanding of Street Fighter's reality, none of the Season 5 characters had been released at that time, but now that last batch is almost complete and provides a bit of a clearer picture.

Much of the plot that we now presume to take place after Third Strike comes from the ongoing build up of what's going on with G.

While it's not entirely certain when the mysterious figure first shows up in his own character story, G's subsequent appearances are more than likely post-SF3.

This makes perfect sense with the reintroduction of Gill and means his defeat at the hands of Alex did not thwart his ambition, but instead may have moved things forward.

According to the Secret Society leader, the world is still following his prophecy and moving towards an apocalyptic end — by the work of G perhaps?

What seems to further solidify the notion is that Gill refers to himself as emperor, which is something that happened during the events of SF3: Second Impact

Last year, Nakayama teased that Rose's inclusion into SF5 may make new truths come to light, and that certainly was the case.

The fortune teller's confrontation of G and subsequent revelation to travel back in time would similarly take place after Third Strike.

This would mean the same would be true of Oro's character story as well.

But that pretty much catches us up with the growing and ongoing G plotline, so what of the rest of the cast of SF5.

Well, it's easy to assume now this future timeline also includes Ed, Falke and the formation of Neo Shadaloo.

When Ed leaves Balrog's side after the collapse of Shadaloo, the art still depicts him as an adolescent / teenager (despite what his in-game model during that shows).

The original idea was that he just began to age into an adult rapidly afterwards due to being a clone or body double for M. Bison, but there's more to it than that.

This now implies Ed actually spent a more considerable amount of time maturing and tracking down / recruiting Falke and the other members of Neo Shadaloo.

considering Ed and Falke appear in their uniforms during Seth's character story too, it would also place the SF4 boss' revival around that same timeframe too.

Most other characters' individual stories appear tied to the events surrounding SF5 or could theoretically take place at just about any point, like Blanka and Sakura, but there are still a few others who we have already seen "into the future" for.

Since the last time we saw Cody in SF4, he was still an escaped prisoner, so it seems a little sudden that he'd become mayor just a short time later.

Sure Mike Haggar exonerated his Final Fight companion of his crimes though it would certainly take some time to turn that into a successful political campaign.

This idea is a bit less concrete than the others, yet still seems a likely explanation to be taking place during SF3 or after Third Strike.

It would also place Lucia in the same spot as well as potentially Zeku, Poison and Abigail.

Finally, we have Luke as the last DLC character to join SF5.

His character story looks like it probably takes place after the main events of Street Fighter 5, although there's no real specific events that point to his introduction taking place at a specific point in time.

Are there any other fighters who may be running around further in the timeline than previously though? Let us know your ideas in the comments.

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