Street Fighter and McDonald’s Japan Team Up for Burgers

Here is a crossover almost nobody saw coming. McDonald’s Japan and the Street Fighter franchise announced a team up on Thursday, complete with a poster bringing together Ryu, Chun Li, Ken Masters, and M. Bison. The big question, of course, is which one makes the world’s strongest burger.

The collaboration kicks off on October 22 with three special hamburgers: the Kogashi Ninniku Mayo Tamago Teriyaki, a charred garlic mayonnaise egg teriyaki burger; the Yóulínjī Mayo Chicken, a Chinese style deep fried chicken with mayonnaise; and the TriChee, a triple cheeseburger.

To promote it all, McDonald’s put out a playful 30 second video that lovingly parodies an old Street Fighter II commercial, with the cast trading McDonald’s themed attacks. Sadly, that clip is region locked to Japan.

Three more videos pair fighters with specific menu items. Ryu and Akuma, here renamed Gouki Nalds, front the teriyaki burger; Chun Li and Guile, going by Smile Guile, take the Mayo Chicken; and Ken Masters and M. Bison, dubbed Vega Smile, handle the Triple Cheeseburger.

The menu does not stop at burgers. There is also a Double Sausage Muffin, the McFizz and McFloat Minagiru Energy drinks, and a Shaka Shaka Potato consommé seasoning. The drinks even arrive in collaboration cups showing Ryu and Ken mid Hadōken. For the curious, the series’ latest game Street Fighter 6 launched in June 2023 on PlayStation and Xbox consoles and PC, and later made its way to Nintendo Switch.

My take: Renaming Akuma to Gouki Nalds is the kind of gloriously goofy pun that makes these Japan only collaborations so much fun, and now I really want to know how that teriyaki burger actually tastes.