For all you Street Fighter die-hards out there wondering where your favorite character has disappeared to in Street Fighter IV have no fear! Capcom has just announced a new secret character in their arcade build of the game and it’s none other than Akuma.

There’s no word on if Akuma is already in the Japanese arcade hardware or if he will be region-specific to North America. Also left unstated was whether or not Akuma would be in the console versions of the game and whether he would be a playable character.

What they would say was “We’re not ready to say how you access him just yet in the arcade, but rest assured he’s in there and you’ve got a world of hurt waiting for you when you face him.”

I like to think that there was a stampede of Japanese gamers running for their arcades in a flurry to figure out how to fight Akuma. What I don’t get is how he’s been missed so far. I figured someone would have found Shen Long by now (if he’s in there) let alone any hidden bosses.

I don’t understand why Capcom is being such a tease with their fighters either. Why can’t we download new fighters via Xbox Live or PSN? Maybe they’re saving that feature for Street Fighter V.