Capcom Is Looking to Hire a New Battle Planner for Street Fighter 6

Instead of the usual game updates and announcements, the Japanese account for Street Fighter 6 recently posted a job listing, which got the internet all abuzz, but is there a good reason for it?

The post says that Capcom is hiring a battle planner who will be handling various aspects of fighting game production. Things like conceptualizing systems, planning characters, adjusting balance, and creating game modes.

That's pretty much all there is to it. Sounds normal, doesn't it? So why is there so much discussion around this post? Well, that's also simple. People really like speculating, looking into things, but also most people don't really know too much about the inner workings of fighting game production or hiring process.

For starters, no, this isn't an indicator that Ryuichi "Woshige" Shigeno is leaving or moving to some other project. While he occupies the somewhat nebulous role of a "battle planner" at Capcom (also listed as Combat Director on SFV), he isn't and never was the only person in that position.

For Street Fighter 6, credits include 10 names, including Woshige: Ryuichi Shigeno, Takuto Suzuki, Yoshitomo Higa, Yosuke Teratani, Yoshimitsu Kondo, Koki Kurosawa, Masaya Yoshikawa, Susumu Nakai, Kosuke Kamiesu, Masayuki Tsutamoto.

It could be that Capcom is adding another person to this list, just as Street Fighter 6 itself only grows over time, making the act of balancing it all, while also improving and adding new things, increasingly complex. It could be that one of them moved to another position within the company, or even left entirely. In which case they'd need someone new to take up the responsibilities.

While the role is important and directly impacts the player experience, Capcom hiring someone new is not likely to have some major, noticeable impact going forward.

A more out there speculation regarding this listing comes from people who think it heavily implies that Capcom is working on a new, announced fighting game. Even though this being posted from SF6 account should say otherwise, the assumption seems to stem entirely from vague wording. People expect that it would say "you will be doing following tasks in production of Street Fighter 6," and instead, it's "planning tasks related to fighting game production."

This is normal. That's just how most job listings are in the world of video games. Companies generally hire you to work in a certain position, not in a certain position for a specific game. For example, Larian has an opening for an RPG Designer. Even though we all know that they're currently working on Divinity, the page doesn't specify it. They simply list out responsibilities, requirements, and "nice to haves" that come into play when making RPGs. 

There are obviously exceptions, like CDPR, who go out of their way to specify which project you will be working on. Most other companies will simply keep things open. Even DICE, who have been doing almost nothing but Battlefield games, are not telling people that you will be working on BF6, but more so you will be working on just Battlefield.

Of course this could all develop into something great, maybe Capcom does have some ambitious plans for SF6 in the big 2026, but a single job listing for a battle planner is not a good indication of it.