The best fighting games DLC characters in 2025

It’s pretty hard to compare the gameplay value of DLC characters between different fighting games. All these titles have their specific criteria to consider someone a good or a bad addition to the roster. For creating this list, we paid attention to creative achievements, wow factor, and the role in the game’s evolution.

Here are the best DLC characters in fighting games, released in 2025 — ranked.

The story of Unika is fascinating. Not only is this girl an original character, which is pretty rare for Strive, but she was also created for the anime adaptation, Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers.

At this point, the mainstream fighting games carry huge legacy luggage. People want to have the characters they enjoyed in previous installments — and for developers, it’s a safer step than adding someone original.

Strive specifically follows this trend, having a plethora of bright personalities in the lore who make it to the roster. Unika is just unique here, adding something new to the story and to the game itself.

In terms of her fighting abilities, Unika is a waifu character. Her moveset is straightforward and effective. Playing her is accessible for beginners and can be rewarding for skilled players.

It’s also something generally unusual for Strive, as the game leaned towards overcomplicated anime extravaganza with later roster additions.

Lucy is also a nice nominee for the best fighting games characters in 2025. She is the first collaboration character in the entire Guilty Gear series, coming from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. The original ideas and general accessibility win this time.

The release of Anna feels like it was in another era, as it happened before Season 2. Still, the legend joined TEKKEN 8 in the spring of 2025, and it was a really wholesome addition — right before the storm hit.

Anna Williams carries a nice balance of legacy and fresh implementation. In a way, she represents the golden hype of the game’s starting period. There was little to no controversy around her. Anna did not try to fix anything in TEKKEN 8. She just arrived and made the players happy.

The level of her competitive value is undeniable, as Anna joined her sister Nina to bring two Evo wins for Arslan Ash this season. It’s a well-deserved place among the best fighting games characters of 2025!

The revival of FATAL FURY is like a great achievement for the fighting games community (FGC). Even the competitors pay respect to this game, and Capcom even allowed Terry in Mai to Street Fighter 6 — for the first time in the main games of this franchise.

Chun-Li and Ken are part of the mirror gesture, as they come from SF6 to FATAL FURY: City of the Wolves. This entire collaboration is awesome, and on top of that, Chun-Li was implemented in an absolutely brilliant way.

She really is a Street Fighter character in FATAL FURY, breaking the series’ traditions. Playing Chun-Li feels different: the developers did a great job keeping her authenticity, including the charging input for Spinning Bird Kick.

The game may somewhat struggle in terms of active players, as it’s objectively difficult to distract the FGC members from the grind in their primary titles. Still, City of the Wolves received the fighting game of the year award for a reason — and the excellence of Chun-Li reflects the general achievements of the SNK team.

The addition of this character was a master class from Capcom on how to bring legacy legends to the modern fighting titles. Sagat feels refreshed even in comparison to his SFV version. He is satisfying to play, and he came at the right moment.

In general, Street Fighter 6 is arguably the genre’s peak at the moment. The developers keep a proper balance with everything, like supporting pro competition and bringing fun single-player content. The release of Sagat timed perfectly with the backlash against Fahkumram in TEKKEN 8. In contrast to that story, SF6 got a character people really like, with a proper take on Muay Thai in fighting games, and he did not online matchmaking a one-sided nightmare in 2025.

Sagat pretty quickly made it to the top tournaments, proving his high placement in Street Fighter 6 tier lists. Blaz played Sagat in some matchups at Evo France 2025.

This character brought lots of hype in the TEKKEN 8 community, but still, the release of Armor King in 2025 was somewhat shadowed by his role as a savior in the middle of a bitter disaster.

Armor King is just great to play! He has tools to deal damage and an aura to dominate the fighting stages. He was a welcome part of the otherwise controversial Season 2 Character Pass.

It felt like the developers rushed to reveal Armor King to fix the reputation damage from their own Season 2 balance decisions and from the release of Fahkumram. They did not hurry to cook the black-jaguar wrestler, though.

Miary Zo could also be a good pick for this list. She is an original character in TEKKEN 8, and the ideas behind her creation are pretty impressive. Still, the “waifu Ogre” has both admirers and haters: some people don’t like her anime look and the role of a magic pole dancer.

In its latest season, MK1 became a really fun game to play. The developers polished the original ideas and added a few cool characters.

T-1000 is the conclusion of this era in the Mortal Kombat series. Moves and transformations from Terminator 2 make the character versatile and pretty strong. His original brutality suits well to the bloody massacre of MK1 matches.

In a way, the liquid-metal robot represents the general issue of the game, which is the inability to offer DLC appealing to a younger audience. However great T-1000 and Conan are, they cannot compete with the hype around the competitors, such as Marvel Tokon.

T-1000 still deserves this placement in our list of the best fighting games characters of 2025: on its own and as a farewell to MK1.

This game reached its top-most DLC point of 2025 with Sandalphon. He was requested by the Granblue community for a long time, and players were happy with what they got as a fighting incarnation.

Sandalphon is not an easy character to play, contrasting with Wilnas and the general reputation of Granblue Fantasy Rising: Versus as a beginner-friendly fighting game. In this case, making the intense training highly rewarding was a good decision, as the game already settled with its very dedicated community and needed to give something great to such players.

The transition from the mobile game to the fighting environment went very well in terms of visual beauty. Even after the addition of a few other DLC characters to GBVS Rising, Sandalphon keeps the hype effect and the competitive value.

Within its niche as an anime fighting game, Under Night 2 thrives, having a presence at the official Arc World Tour and receiving rare but steady updates. Izumi joined the roster at the end of Season 1, and she positively shook up the meta.

The character broke the tradition of magic weapons, as Izumi comes with heavy punches and a fish to apply all sorts of technical pressure on her opponents.

It is difficult to learn Izumi, and she is rather a specialist pick. The developers are brave to experiment with adding an original character and refreshing the somewhat settled principles of their game — this certainly feels good.

We cannot rank the cat-ant creature from Hunter x Hunter, as the game couldn’t follow the community’s expectations. Nen Impact did not deliver in terms of content quality, while the fighting potential is still there. Neferpitou is a nice, fun character to play.

Her premise is pure excitement! In the anime, she is extremely strong and super popular. In the fighting game, Neferpitou is a scary monster to play against: a quick rushdown with technical elements.

The fighting games industry has prepared many new releases for 2026, and we already know some of them. Caitlyn joins 2XKO. Marvel Tokon and Invinvible VS are set for a release this year. Guilty Gear Strive 2 was confirmed, while the details are still a mystery.

The next seasons for Street Fighter 6 and TEKKEN 8 are inevitable. We should discover more details during the TEKKEN World Tour 2025 Finals, from Jan. 30 to Feb. 1, and the Capcom Cup 12, from March 11 to March 14.