The Battle Hub in Street Fighter 6 is one of the best and flashiest features in the game. However, there wasn’t really anything important to the lore of the game that was revealed until recently. A post on Twitter/X showed that the Battle Hub is actually a non-descript aircraft. https://twitter.com/gigabuster1912/status/1696189221898485913
Normally, this wouldn’t be seen as anything but a hidden easter egg. However, as the tweet states, the frame of the plane is fully constructed, and, in certain places, is fully rendered. All you have to do is look out the window.
It appears that very few people took notice and did this very simple thing, although considering background design isn’t the focus of the primarily competitive inhabitants of the Battle Hub, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Still, it’s amazing that the little details that were missed come together to tell a greater story, one that goes beyond the Battle Hub and could have bigger implications for the series as a whole.
Last year, I wrote abut Eternity and their symbolic ties to the Illuminati. In the article, I pointed out the design choices they had that led me to believe they were a member of Gill’s group. https://manestreetblog.com/2022/10/13/street-fighter-6-the-monster-mash/
However, even with Eternity’s crystal motif being a telltale sign of Illuminati influence, something about Eternity was also very G-like: their need for online fame. In fact, in Street Fighter 6, we see no less than 5 prominent characters, both playable and non-playable, who have strong online ambitions: Eternity, Manon, Rashid, Blanka, and the Infooencer from World Tour mode. In fact, the three playable characters all have a link to G, whether symbolic or direct: Manon has a love of gold, Rashid personally spread G’s fame, and Blanka has ties to nature. Both Eternity and the Infooencer has a tie to G simply by using the same video platform as he does, Footube, but it’s not nearly as strong as the other links.
Or at least I would say that if everyone on Footube wasn’t already one with G by using the platform. Quite simply, if you use Footube, you’re already under G’s control.
That being said, the question of whether or not Eternity has any stronger links to G than just using the same online platform appears to have an answer in the Battle Hub itself. Since Eternity is the first person who introduces us to the Battle Hub and is the person we run into the most outside of Luke in the overall game, everything we see in the Battle Hub not only ties directly to Eternity, but the entirety of the game and its story.
And what’s there warrants further discussion.
I first wanted to mention that I looked into the idea of the Battle Hub being created by SiRN as the engines of the plane looked remarkably similar to the Hyoombas you find in Metro City, but after looking at several drones, I can’t say one way or the other that SiRN has anything to do with the Battle Hub. If something does come up, I’ll be sure to at least write about it on social media.
However, SiRN does have one thing in common with the Battle Hub: a hologram of Earth.
This is part of the automated sign we see in Beat Square at the very beginning of the game. Compare it to the one we see in the Battle Hub.
They’re very similar, and it could be argued that the holograms could be the same, only represented on two different scales. Since we only see the southern hemisphere of Earth in the Battle Hub, the sign could be a way of showing the rest of it. Of course, the fact that there are more advertisements on the automated sign than just SiRN’s means that it’s really just a diverse billboard than anything, but it’s nonetheless an interesting design choice considering that Earth is not only one of G’s many themes, but is even referenced in the fictitious in-game company Snowball Earth (as to what it actually produces, I’m not entirely sure; ice cream, perhaps?)
However, the symbolism of Earth goes a bit deeper, and you have to know where to look. Some of G’s most prominent features are the gold markings on his body in the shapes of various landmasses across Earth that revolve around him as he fights. This was one of the developer concepts that stayed with G from the beginning, as seen in How To Make Capcom Fighting Characters.
There’s something else, though. Do you notice the color scheme of the landmasses in the original concept art? If you played around in the Battle Hub, it should look familiar.
While not the exact same colors, they’re close enough to question if the hologram, and by extension, the Battle Hub, is powered by G himself, or if the hologram is actually G watching you as you fight in the Battle Hub. This would make for some mind-blowing, beyond meta scenarios, and I would advise not to think about this too deeply, especially since there’s more evidence involved that shows G’s involvement.
One of the more subtle potential references lies in the logo of the Battle Hub. Looking on it straight on, it doesn’t reveal too much, but if you turn it one way or another, you see something interesting. Here’s two versions of the logo in different places in the Battle Hub. See anything distinctive?
No? How about now?
It’s possible that what we’re looking at are elements of G’s mask from Street Fighter V incorporated in the Battle Hub logo, and made in a way that you can turn the logo on it’s side to see the mask. Admittedly, the mask looks a little different depending on which way you turn it, but the core elements are there: holes for the eyes and nose and sunken-in cheek lines around the mouth that make it look skull-like.
However, this can be left up to interpretation, and there is a chance that this was completely coincidental. That being said, there’s one final piece of evidence that is far more obvious and left in plain sight for anyone to see:
G’s name is all over the Battle Hub.
This is one of G’s biggest character quirks. His name is all over Street Fighter V’s Ring of Galaxy, so seeing his name all over the Battle Hub should come as no surprise. Its the best proof we have that the Battle Hub belongs to G, and since G’s name also looks like the number 6 in different interpretations, arguing that this is only meant to represent the number 6 is rather short-sighted. This was an intentional design. In fact, I could argue that G’s name is right on the box art.
There’s one more thing that G’s presence in the Battle Hub seems to confirm: why he was Dan Hibiki’s, and only Dan Hibiki’s, final boss in Street Fighter V’s arcade mode. Yes, it was a way to establish him as the boss of the game, but there’s a canonical reason outside of Dan wanting to get online fame.
Through G, Yuriko, Dan’s sister, continues her role as Street Fighter’s official online shopkeeper. She seems to be all too excited to do it, and G specifically wanted her for his battle shop.
Unfortunately for her, Yuriko is now just another Q.
Street Fighter Game Lore Theories 