In a recent interview with Famitsu, producer Matsumoto and director Nakayama revealed that development of M. Bison began after the core roster was completed, which certainly explains why the questline hinted at M. Bison's return before it was officially announced.
In the same interview, Matsumoto and Nakayama also mentioned that this time they were trying to emphasize M. Bison's martial arts skills rather than his psychic abilities. Though not mentioned in the interview, it turns out that M. Bison is a practitioner of ladlit, a form of Muay Thai martial arts employed by the Royal Thai military. As always, translation was done by our own Nicholas “MajinTenshinhan” Taylor.
Famitsu: His Psycho Crusher and Double Knee Press look as amazing as ever. Have there been any improvements or changes to these moves since the last game?
Nakayama: The biggest difference is the difference between the Psycho Crusher and the Double Knee Press. In previous games, both were charge moves, but in this game, the Psycho Crusher remains a charge move, but the Double Knee Press has a quarter circle motion.
This is still a progressive move, and the benefits are essentially the same, but the change has required some slight tweaks to how things work.
There's also a new move called the Back Fist Combo, which plants a Psycho Mine (basically a bomb) on the opponent that won't go away until M. Bison attacks, then explodes after a few frames.
So players who have a Psycho Mine equipped will feel uneasy and want to attack M. Bison. In this way, you can engage in psychological warfare. Also, if an opponent has a Psycho Mine equipped, the characteristics of their special move will change when they hit.
Matsumoto: The combos he can use with the Psychomine will be quite long. He's become quite an aggressive character.
Nakayama: His fighting style revolves around forcing powerful attacks with a specialized ground game.
Famitsu: Producer Matsumoto, as the main M. Bison, what do you think are the highlights of him?
Matsumoto: He's a fairly aggressive character, and I think he fits the system of Street Fighter 6 very well. In previous titles, he came across as a pretty strong standby defensive character, so in Street Fighter 5 we decided to make him a bit more aggressive, and that continues the trend, making him a very dominant character. His drive rush is also pretty fast.
Nakayama: Producer Matsumoto has also been practicing a lot (laughs).
Famitsu: Already?! The Drive Rush you mentioned, the spring-filled image of M. Bison in the trailer was impactful. Normally I would expect teleportation or something, but…
Matsumoto: For Street Fighter 6, we had a strong desire to create a new M. Bison.
Nakayama: We wanted to fully express the martial artist side of M. Bison. We wanted to reduce the supernatural aspects of his techniques and strengthen the actual fighting parts. That's why he doesn't have teleportation. This is also touched upon in the story mode, so please enjoy it.
