Guile

Guile
Guile's official artwork from Street Fighter X Tekken.
Universe	Street Fighter
Debut	Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (1991)
Smash Bros. appearances	Ultimate
Most recent non-Smash appearance	Street Fighter 6 (2023)
Console/platform of origin	Arcade
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Place of origin	United States
Created by	Akira Nishitani Akira Yasuda
English voice actor	Travis Willingham
Japanese voice actor	Hiroki Yasumoto
Article on Wikipedia	Guile (Street Fighter)

Guile (ガイル, Guile) is a character from the Street Fighter series.

Origin

Guile defeating Ken with a Flash Kick in Street Fighter II

Guile is one of the original eight playable characters from Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. He would go on to appear in every iteration of Street Fighter II, as well as the home release versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3, all incarnations of Street Fighter IV, as part of the first wave of DLC for Street Fighter V, and in several crossover games.

Guile hails from the United States of America, and is a major in the United States Air Force. Guile learned to fight from his best friend Charlie Nash, who taught him moves such as the Flash Kick and the Sonic Boom. But because Guile has less focus and greater anger than Charlie, he is less effective at using these moves; his Flash Kick hits only once and is performed with a conventional backflip as opposed to Charlie's two-hit reverse backflip, and he requires both arms to use a Sonic Boom, whereas Charlie only needs one. When Charlie went missing investigating the mysterious Shadaloo cartel, Guile swore to find his friend and bring him home. His search brought him into the path of Interpol agent Chun-Li who was also investigating a disappearance: that of her father. The two eventually discovered that Charlie had been kidnapped and brainwashed by Shadaloo's dictator M. Bison. Charlie broke free of his programming and rescued Guile and Chun-Li, seemingly at the cost of his own life. M. Bison survived the incident and was put on trial for murder of a military officer and Chun-Li's father, but was acquitted after bribing all of the judges. Guile swore vengeance on Bison and entered the second Street Fighter tournament to this end. Upon meeting Bison however, Guile was stopped by the arrival of his wife and daughter, who persuaded him to spare Bison and abandon revenge. For all his taunts of "Go home and be a family man!" Guile did just that. It was not to last, as he was not convinced that Charlie had perished.

Believing that the truth might be with the S.I.N Corporation, Guile helps track down operative Juri alongside Chun-Li and Cammy. During the events of Street Fighter IV, Guile enters the tournament in an attempt to get information and possibly take down S.I.N. Along the way, he meets a man named Abel, who recognizes the Sonic Boom technique. Believing this means Abel knows about Charlie, Guile starts interrogating him, but Abel refuses to give up any information to a stranger. The two eventually come to blows because of it. It is unknown who won the fight, but both are later seen together. After retrieving information from the S.I.N base, Guile rescues an unconscious Chun-Li and watches from a helicopter as the base explodes. Guile is then seen going to Charlie's grave, putting a beer bottle on the tombstone to give his buddy a drink.

Still believing Nash is alive, Guile officially goes AWOL and sets out to prove it once and for all. He is contacted by Karin Kanzuki in a plan to take down a resurrected Shadaloo. He soon found his friend alive, albeit revived and stitched together by the Secret Society in Street Fighter V's Story Mode. On the final assault on Shadaloo, Guile and Chun-Li are confronted by M. Bison. Nash appears and fights off Bison, eventually blowing himself up as a sacrifice as Guile watches. This was all for naught, however, as Bison survives. As Ryu defeats Bison and Rashid sets the facility to explode, Guile meets everyone else as they are relieved that M. Bison is gone for good. Also at some point around this time, Guile saves an undercover Abel from Shadaloo agent F.A.N.G. Later, they get reports that former S.I.N members are being abducted. They go to an abandoned S.I.N lab, where they find and confront Juri. She states that nothing of value is in the lab, but Shadaloo is working on operation C.H.A.I.N.S. Soon after Juri escapes, the lab starts to collapse. Abel almost gets crushed to death, but Guile helps him out of the lab.

Guile's military service also sees him befriending a military trainer named Tom from New York City. Tom himself would later adopt and train the son of one of Guile's fallen comrades, Alex. Alex himself would take on the Secret Society to find out about the sudden disappearance of Tom and have his own sparring match with Ryu, seeing him as his ultimate rival.

Guile is the second playable character to hail from the United States, the first being Ken. They are actually related by marriage. Ken's wife Eliza is the sister of Julia, Guile's wife, making the two brothers-in-law. Guile does have some reservations about Ken's care free attitude and lavish lifestyle, but both mutually respect each other's sense of justice and are willing to help each other out.

Guile's behavior as an Assist Trophy is a reference to the infamous tactic of 'down-backing', where the Guile player constantly holds down and away from the opponent, charging up both his Sonic Boom projectile and Flash Kick at the same time while blocking. This defensive style of play is unofficially known as "zoning," and is notorious among lower-level players that attempt to jump over a Sonic Boom only to get hit by Flash Kick immediately afterwards.

In Super Smash Bros. 4

While Guile makes no direct apperance in Super Smash Bros. 4, he is alluded to in a few instances relating to Ryu's appearance downloadable content. The trophy description for Ken in the PAL version of the game says that he "goes home and becomes a family man", a play on Guile's famous victory quote from Street Fighter II: "Go home and be a family man!" In Ryu's character poster, an homage to a piece of official artwork from Street Fighter II, Link takes Guile's position from the original artwork.

In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

As an Assist Trophy

“	Appearing from the Street Fighter series! He crouches down and waits patiently ... then delivers a Flash Kick to anybody who approaches! Don't get too close.	”
—Super Smash Blog, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Official Site

Hitting Little Mac with a Flash Kick on Rainbow Cruise.

Guile appears as an Assist Trophy. He mostly remains on the defensive, crouching and blocking attacks, although if a character tries to approach him from above, they will be attacked by Guile's signature Flash Kick. If no opponents come near him, he will repeatedly fire his signature Sonic Boom shots. If he fulfills his time without being defeated, he will say "That was nothing!" before leaving. Both of these attacks also have "light" and "heavy" versions that determine height and speed. He may also jump and, if an opponent is near while doing so, use either a jump medium kick or a jump heavy kick; this references a common input error for Flash Kick, where either the crouching charge was not held for long enough or the upward motion and the kick were pressed at the wrong time. He is also one of the many Assist Trophy characters that can be KO'd. His fighting style may be a playful jab at the playstyle of Guile players in the Street Fighter games, who are known for simply crouching in the corner of the stage, blocking any projectiles that come their way and using Flash Kick on those who get close while also using Sonic Boom on opponents who simply try to run their patience out by stalling in the same way.

Much like Ryu and Ken, the hits from Guile's attacks emit the original hitsounds from Street Fighter II. Guile's voice lines are recycled from Street Fighter IV.

Other references

Palutena's Guidance regarding Ken mentions Guile's wife, Julia, being the sister of Ken's wife, Eliza, making them brothers-in-law.

Spirit

Guile also appears as a Legend-class primary spirit.

In Adventure Mode: World of Light, Guile is presumably one of the countless spirits captured by Galeem during his takeover of the universe. After Galeem's defeat, Dharkon takes control of Galeem's spirits, including Guile. After Dharkon's defeat, he flees to the final world, with Galeem following soon after. In the final world, Galeem and Dharkon wage war against each other using their captured spirits, with Galeem taking control of Guile.

Guile uses a Captain Falcon puppet fighter and is fought on the Pilotwings stage's Ω form. During the battle, Guile appears as a hostile Assist Trophy.

Guile can be summoned using the cores of Arwing, Nash, two Shield types and one Grab type.

No.	Image	Name	Type	Class	Slots	Base	Max	Base	Max	Base	Max	Ability	Series
984		Guile		★★★★	2	4167	10419	1022	2555	2985	7464	Foot Attack ↑	Street Fighter Series

Gallery

• 

  Official artwork from Ultimate.

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  Guile posing on Suzaku Castle.

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  Guile crouching next to Isabelle's "do not enter" sign produced by her up smash on Skyloft.

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  Guile using Sonic Boom on Pikachu on Moray Towers.

Names in other languages

Language	Name
Japanese	ガイル, Guile
English	Guile
French	Guile
German	Guile
Spanish	Guile
Italian	Guile
Chinese	Guile
Korean	Guile
Dutch	Guile
Russian	Гайл

Trivia

• One of Guile's screenshots on the Ultimate official website where he shoots Sonic Boom at Pikachu references Lt. Surge, the third Kanto Gym Leader from the Pokémon series, who has a Voltorb capable of using Sonic Boom in his team. In Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver Versions, his attire even looks similar to Guile.
• In Ultimate, when the language is set to Korean, Guile uses his Japanese voice clips, despite Ryu and Ken using their English voice clips. This distinction is shared with Gray Fox, who also uses his Japanese voice clips despite Snake using his English voice clips.
• Guile is voiced in English by Travis Willingham, who also provides the voice of another Assist Trophy from a third-party franchise, Knuckles. Much like with Knuckles, Ultimate is the last game in which Willingham voices the character, as he was replaced with Ray Chase in Street Fighter 6.