Franchise: Street Fighter

Rose from the Alpha series was inspired by Lisa Lisa, a character from the manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Rose's outfit is almost identical to Lisa Lisa's and both share a similar fighting style that consists of channeling energy into a scarf. Both characters are also known for enjoying baths. In addition, Rose's stage in Street Fighter Alpha 2 is Venice, which is the same city where Joseph Joestar meets Lisa Lisa in the story, and Rose's Soul Drain move is inspired by a scene in the manga where Lisa Lisa puts a breathing mask on Joseph Joestar.

The character design for Q from Street Fighter III: Third Strike is heavily based off of the 1970s Japanese superhero Robot Detective K.

The game's designer, Yoshiki Okamoto, originally wanted Chun-Li's health bar to be shorter than the other fighters'.

He said "You know how each character has a life bar? At one point, I wanted to make the power gauge for Chun-Li shorter than for the other characters because women are not as strong. But [another designer] didn't want to do that. We both had legitimate reasons, but then we came to an agreement to not make it shorter."

In a similar vein to Dan being a parody of Art of Fighting's Ryo Sakazaki, the appearance of Dan's father, Go Hibiki, is also a parody of Mr. Karate.

In Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix, Dan can call upon his father's ghost, whose tengu-like face bears a striking resemblance to the mask worn by Mr. Karate, who is also known as Takuma Sakazaki, the father of Ryo Sakazaki.

Dan Hibiki is a parody of SNK's Art of Fighting character Ryo Sakazaki, whose design had already been based on Ryu. His pink clothing is a spoof of Ryo's orange attire, while his head is a spoof of Robert Garcia.

When Rashid was unveiled as a playable character in Street Fighter V, his specific nationality was unknown, with players only knowing that he was Middle Eastern. However, in 2022 when the entire playable base game roster and first wave of DLC of Street Fighter 6 was leaked, it revealed a more specific country he was from, with Rashid confirmed as being Saudi Arabian.

According to Street Fighter 6 director Takayuki Nakayama, Captain Commando is set in the future of the Street Fighter universe. This has been hinted at via numerous references to another series set in the same universe, Final Fight. Specific examples of this include Captain Commando taking place in Metro City (a recurring location from both Final Fight and Street Fighter) and Ginzu being trained in the fictional Bushinryu Ninjutsu style of fighting used by Guy. Nakayama at one point revealed that Ginzu's father Gou (a character who had previously only appeared in concept art) would eventually succeed Guy as the 40th Bushinryu Grandmaster, with Ginzu eventually becoming the 41st Grandmaster.

Gou would later make his official debut in Street Fighter 6's World Tour mode during Kimberly's second memory dialogue, where she mentions how she was easily beaten by him. His appearance here depicts him wearing a purple version of Guy's Bushinryu outfit (similar to Ginzu's uniform) and holding a katana similar to Ginzu's signature weapon Lightning Light. Another reference in World Tour mode comes in the form of Carol, one of the minor enemies from Captain Commando appearing as an opponent during the "Fighty Mighty" mission quest. Her appearance is loosely based on her in-game sprite, wearing a blue tank top and pants as well as having pink hair (though here it's depicted as being straight rather than a ponytail), and her dialogue upon being beaten alludes to her role as a criminal in the original game: "Reminds me of old times, back when I was involved in some...slightly unscrupulous business."

There is one known continuity error with the game being set in the Street Fighter universe. In the Character Reference section of the Street Fighter V Shadaloo Combat Research Institute website, the profile for Yuta Homura mentions that he can clear Captain Commando using Mack the Knife (under his Japanese name Jenetty, "ジェネティー") with a single credit. The game is not mentioned by name though, and is instead referred to as an unspecified "beat'em up action game".