'Street Fighter V' kicks off Season 2 with updates and holiday skins

The first season of Street Fighter V has come to a close and developer Capcom is ushering in Season 2 with a host of changes and new content.

Tuesday's Season 2 patch includes a new character, a bunch of character updates and balances, new penalties for rage quitters (on top of the old penalties), better controller support for PC players and the release of some purely aesthetic holiday DLC.

Akuma enters the fray

The 23rd character in the Street Fighter V roster has arrived. Akuma, who was first introduced in Street Fighter II Turbo, is available Tuesday. You can check out his trailer below.

Holiday fun

SFV's holiday content was teased at the beginning of the month and featured six Christmas-themed costumes and a snowy version of the New York stage. Each DLC item is $3.99 individually or you can get the bundle for $19.99. You can check out the teaser video below.

Along with the holiday DLC, there are new B-boy and B-girl skins for Ryu and Chun-Li, which are not a part of the holiday bundle.

Rage quitters, beware

Along with the DLC, Street Fighter rage quitters are getting increased penalties for disconnecting before matches are completed. Previously, rage quitters would just lose League Points and be temporarily locked out of matchmaking. Now they'll also be publicly shamed with an icon on their profiles, which will increase their odds of being matched with other rage quitters.

Players who rarely disconnect will receive a special icon on their profile showing how honorable they are. They'll also have a better chance of matching up against fellow non-ragers.

Controller support

Playing with a controller on the Steam version of Street Fighter V can be a pain for players, but now the game is officially supporting DirectInput controllers like those for the original Xbox 360 and DirectInput fight pads.

Most new controllers use newer XInput drivers to operate. Players with DirectInput controllers needed to download separate software just to get their hardware to work. It took some time, but DirectInput controllers now function natively in SFV for Steam, which you can find if you go to Options and look in Other Settings.

Character updates

There are a ton of new tweaks and changes affecting the entire Street Fighter V roster. The biggest changes come to many characters' invincible moves that don't use meter, such as Ryu's Shoryuken, to make them better balanced.

Along with those nerfs, parameters and hit situations for normal throws have received some changes as well as characters that can loop their throws at the edges of stages.

The full list of changes is available to view on Capcom's blog, with detailed breakdowns of each character.