The Ending Of Street Fighter (2026) Explained

Contains spoilers for "Street Fighter"

The original "Street Fighter" film from 1994 occupies a fascinating space within the history of video game movies. Critics weren't kind to the film, as it stands with a paltry 20% rating from Rotten Tomatoes. However, many fans have come around to the film in the decades since the release, and Looper even ranked it as one of the top five best live-action video game adaptations of all time. It was the last movie Raul Julia starred in before he died, so it's also sentimental for that reason. And if you're in the right mindset, it's silly, campy fun that embodies a very '90s aesthetic.

2026's "Street Fighter" is trying to bring the franchise to a new generation while also honoring what's come before. The film is set in 1993 and has plenty of '90s references and needle drops for Gen Xers and Millennials to reminisce on. But amidst all the fighting and singing along to 4 Non Blondes, you might be left scratching your head and wondering what exactly happened in that finale (or lack thereof). 

The ending of "Street Fighter" makes it clear that a sequel is in the cards, but could it actually happen? And what can we expect out of a follow-up? Let's go into all of the details because if you thought you may have missed something, you're probably not alone. 

In 1987, Ryu (Andrew Koji) defeats Sagat in the first World Warrior Tournament, leading to the malevolent entity Akuma (Joe "Roman Reigns" Anoa'i) infesting his body. This spirit eventually kills Gouken (Don Lee), mentor to both Ryu and Ken (Noah Centineo), driving a wedge between the two young fighters. Ryu disappears, but Ken becomes a party boy and best friend to Dan Hibiki (Andrew Schulz), while mostly reduced to punching cars as a sort of sideshow act. 

In 1993, the power-hungry dictator M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) wants to amass enough Psycho Power to become even mightier. He believes he can get this power by extracting it from Ryu, so he sets up the second World Warrior Tournament to draw out the best fighters. Chun-Li (Callina Liang), who's pretending to work for Bison while actually spying on him on behalf of Interpol, locates Ryu and gives him the invitation while informing him that Ken will also be there. Chun-Li eventually goes rogue from Interpol to kill Bison herself, since he murdered her father years prior. 

Ryu arrives at the tournament to talk Ken out of competing, revealing that Bison just wants to acquire Akuma's power, but it's no use. Ryu defeats E. Honda (Hirooki Goto) and takes his place in the tournament. A brawl breaks out at a club between the tournament's combatants, which include Ken, Ryu, Guile (Cody Rhodes), Dhalsim (Vidyut Jammwal), Vega (Orville Peck), and Balrog (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson). Bison's forces incapacitate the fighters and bring Ryu into custody, making him forfeit his first fight in the tournament. 

To draw out Ryu's fighting power, Bison makes him battle Blanka (Jason Momoa). Ryu unleashes a Hadouken — a blast of spirit energy — to allow Blanka to escape, but he remains imprisoned.

Ken defeats Balrog and Dhalsim in the tournament and is set to compete in the final round. But Chun-Li tells him who she really is and what Bison wants out of Ryu. Ken initially doesn't care since Ryu abandoned him, but it doesn't take long for him to have a change of heart and break Ryu out of Bison's custody. That means the winner of the tournament is Joe (Alexander Volkanovski), who no one's really been paying attention to.

While Ken and Ryu are escaping, Ryu reveals that he's responsible for always holding Ken back. In a flashback, we learn how Ken was also invited to compete in the first World Warrior Tournament, but Ryu destroyed his invitation out of jealousy. The two fight in the street, with Ryu using a Hadouken to defeat Ken. 

Now that the tournament is over, Akuma emerges to battle the champion, Joe. Akuma effortlessly kills him, but Ryu confronts him in the true final bout. Ryu transforms into his alternate corrupted form, Dark Ryu. In this form, he defeats Akuma but can't control his power. He fights Ken, Chun-Li and Dan, but is only defeated when Ken realizes he, too, can unleash a Hadouken, which returns him to normal.

Bison acquires Akuma's body, with the fighters too late to stop him. The four wind up on the side of the road and get picked up by Guile and Dhalsim, who are also now invested in the fight to stop Bison. 

Throughout "Street Fighter," Ryu is at war with himself, battling some kind of evil power. We only see this come out in full force at the very end, during his fight with Akuma, when he transforms into a character from the games known as Evil Ryu. This is Ryu's alternate form that depicts what would happen if he ever surrendered to the Satsui no Hado, also known as the Surge of Killing Intent. 

Ken is able to snap Ryu out of this state with his own Hadouken, a burst of energy that manifests from his emotional bond with Ryu. The two grew up as close friends, practically brothers, something alluded to earlier in the film when Gouken told Ken that he was essential for protecting Ryu. This never made sense to Ken since Ryu was so powerful, but by the end, he comes to understand it. Ryu's dark spirit is necessary to defeat Akuma, but Ken is needed to bring Ryu back to the light. 

That being said, the Dark Hado within Ryu isn't gone for good. It can still be in there for Ryu to presumably use another time, but now, they both know that Ken is there to help restore his goodness if the darkness becomes too overwhelming.

"Street Fighter" has one mid-credits scene that appears partway through the film, so you'll want to stay seated. The scene takes us to a remote beach or jungle. Bison and his warriors emerge in front of a man with an eyepatch and scar across his chest. This is Sagat, who we saw Ryu defeat in the first World Warrior Tournament in the film's opening minutes. It would appear as though Bison is recruiting Sagat for whatever evil plan he has cooking, and seeing as Sagat would have an understandable vendetta against Ryu, he's probably happy to go along with it. 

If you're unfamiliar with "Street Fighter" lore, you may not see what the big deal about Sagat is. He's the main villain of the first "Street Fighter" video game but doesn't get much attention in the newest movie. In the games, he eventually aligns himself with Bison, becoming one of his top bodyguards. But over time, he grows disillusioned with Bison's brutality and joins the side of good. 

While Bison is definitely a menace in this movie, he merely sets events in motion while Akuma mostly functions as the primary threat. The post-credits scene sets up the sequel, with Bison finally becoming the big bad. Bison and Sagat will work together, but the question is whether "Street Fighter 2" will hint at Sagat's eventual path to redemption, assuming the films want to go in that direction. The original 1994 "Street Fighter" movie is infamous for having a post-credits scene teasing a movie that was never released. Hopefully, this new "Street Fighter" won't suffer the same fate. 

A sequel to the new "Street Fighter" is pretty much essential at this point, seeing as how this film doesn't really have an ending. Let's just hope it doesn't wind up on the list of movie cliffhangers that were never resolved.

First and foremost, Bison is still at large. Ryu manages to subdue Akuma, but they failed to take him into custody before Bison and his henchmen ran off with the body. A sequel would likely see Bison put his plan into motion to absorb Akuma's power instead of Ryu's. And as we know from the post-credits scene, Bison is also getting Sagat back into the fight, so he has some powerful forces at play. 

There are a couple of antagonists who are kind of forgotten about by the film's end. Chun-Li beats Vega and Juli (Rayna Vallandingham) in a fight at Bison's compound. Will Bison go back for them, or will they work on their own to get revenge?

Much of "Street Fighter" focuses on Ken and Ryu coming back into each other's lives, which they accomplish by the end. However, Chun-Li's arc is still unresolved. While Interpol just wanted her to gather intel on Bison, she's out to kill him now. Since he's on the run, she still has a mission to do, so it's possible that a "Street Fighter" sequel would focus more on Chun-Li and her destiny. 

It's clear Bison wants to absorb Akuma's power for his own gain. But what happens after that? To make any predictions about what the possible plot of "Street Fighter 2" could be, it's probably best to look toward the games.

Given Akuma's prominence in this movie, it would make more sense to cast him aside so that Bison can have a chance to shine. And if the sequel takes it cues from "Street Fighter Alpha 3," it's possible that Bison could become subsumed with Psycho Power to the point where his own body starts failing him. In the game, since he sees this coming, he creates a clone body named Cammy that eventually gains self-awareness and goes rogue. "Street Fighter" already introduced a version of Cammy (Mel Jarnson), so it's unclear if this particular storyline will get retconned.

It's possible a sequel could just have Bison try to transfer his essence into Cammy or if he'll create another clone body to inhabit. "Street Fighter Alpha 3" eventually sees Bison possess Rose's soul, so it's possible the sequel would skip the whole Cammy plot line and instead bring Rose, a fortune teller who wields immense power, into the fold. 

"Street Fighter" has gotten pretty mixed-to-negative reviews from critics. The new film is currently standing with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 43%; however, audiences are far kinder on the platform, as the film has an 78% rating with general viewers. But there's one thing even hardcore fans have to admit: "Street Fighter" is basically half a movie, with major storylines lacking resolution. And people are going online to voice their frustrations. 

On X, content creator @AxelTalksFilm wrote, "This movie ends just as it's about to head into the climax in the most unbelievably abrupt way ever ... Just as it was going to get really good, I'm kind of appalled." X user @KazekunForever shared a similar opinion: "That ending made my jaw drop why the hell would you end it like that?"

It's normal for movies like this to tease sequels, but they at least wrap up whatever story they were trying to tell in the first place. Chun-Li wanted to kill Bison but didn't even get close to doing so. Akuma is still at large, and the heroes pretty much just let Bison walk out with his body. "Street Fighter" could rank amongst the most unfulfilling endings in movies ever, but maybe that sequel will make everything worth it in the end. 

1994's "Street Fighter" infamously failed to launch a sequel, leaving its post-credits scene forever unfulfilled. Hopefully, that same fate doesn't befall the current "Street Fighter," but things are looking promising that a sequel will move forward.

Director Kitao Sakurai revealed to MovieWeb that he already has a ton of ideas for where "Street Fighter 2" could head. And he's getting a jump on working on the story even though a sequel hasn't formally been confirmed as of this writing. "It's something that we're thinking about and developing," Sakurai explained. "I don't want to say anything that locks us in. It also kind of depends on how people react to this one, and whether they, you know, support this vision of the story. We definitely have a lot of ideas, and we're writing currently, but you know, I wouldn't want to make any promises one way or the other about what exactly we're gonna do."

It's probably for the best to keep things vague at this point, seeing as how the film just entered theaters. But the fact that he already has an idea of where the sequel could go is promising to fans. It suggests that if "Street Fighter 2" gets the greenlight, the team can move ahead quickly, and maybe produce a sequel as soon as 2028. But given the mixed reception, "Street Fighter" will have to make bank at the box office to justify another installment.

Right now, box office projections for "Street Fighter" are looking strong. The film pulled in $4 million from Thursday preview showings, and it's tracking at press time to pull in between $25 and $35 million in its opening weekend domestically. With another roughly $30 million from international territories, "Street Fighter" could be looking at a total opening haul of $60 to $70 million. With a reported budget of $82 million, that's a healthy start.

The real question comes down to staying power. Mixed reviews could convince some audiences to stay at home and wait until "Street Fighter" becomes available to watch on Paramount+. On the other hand, "Street Fighter" doesn't have much in the way of competition in the weeks ahead for folks who just want to see a dumb action movie. October 23 sees the release of the DC horror film "Clayface" and animated fantasy "Wildwood." The latter at least will target a different audience than "Street Fighter," so it's possible it could have a solid second weekend. 

Even if "Street Fighter" isn't a runaway success at the box office, Paramount decide that a sequel is still a worthwhile investment. After that ending, the studio may also feel like it owes viewers some kind of concrete resolution, even if the second film winds up being the end of the road for this new version of "Street Fighter."

One positive thing about "Street Fighter" is that the cast is clearly having a blast. Most of the actors understand the assignment — that this is meant to be bloody, stupid fun — and they deliver. If "Street Fighter 2" happens, fans would undoubtedly want to see these same actors back in their roles, and at least one star says he's ready to return repeatedly to this world. 

Noah Centineo, who plays Ken Masters, told The Latin Times, "I just love this character so much. There's nothing about it that I wouldn't want to do over and over and over again." Centineo even stated that he wouldn't mind getting back into the gym to continue looking like Ken for a follow-up. 

"Street Fighter" clearly wasn't everyone's cup of tea (or Jolt Cola as the case may be). But if it finds a passionate fanbase, there could definitely be a market for more stories set in this universe. And with so much exposition out of the way, a prospective "Street Fighter 2" could dive headfirst into non-stop action.