Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition free trial launches

Capcom has launched a free Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition trial.

The game is now free to download and play on PS4 and PC until May 5 Pacific Time/May 6 at 5pm UTC.

The two-week trial includes all the content available in the original Street Fighter V plus the modes introduced in Arcade Edition, including Arcade, Team Battle and Extra Battle.

It also includes the original roster of 16 characters, plus four DLC ones — Akuma, Blanka, Juri and Meant. They’ll only be available in Ranked, Casual, Battle Lounge, Training and Challenges. If you purchase any of these characters during the trial, you’ll keep any progress made with them.

PS4 owners don’t require a PlayStation Plus subscription to download and play the game offline, but one is needed to play online. PC users need the Steam client to access the trial.

Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition released in January 2018 as an updated version of January 2016’s Street Fighter V. It addressed some of the criticism aimed at the original release for a perceived a lack of content with the addition of extra modes and characters.

Street Fighter V sales stood at 2.9 million units at the end of 2018, taking lifetime series sales to 42 million units across 91 titles, according to Capcom.

That makes it the Japanese publisher’s third-highest selling franchise of all time, behind Monster Hunter (53 million sales across 43 titles) and Resident Evil (86 million sales across 125 titles).