SNK’s return to sword-slashing combat looks very promising — and bloody as hell.
As promised, SNK delivered a much closer look at their upcoming return to the classic franchise Samurai Shodown at PAX East 2019, beginning with a fantastic new trailer:
And the window has narrowed for the game’s release: now we can expect the title to be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June 2019, offering just over a month (at least) before we see the game on the Evo 2019 main stage. It will arrive on Switch and PC sometime later.
As gorgeous as the game is looking in the trailer, the gameplay is where it counts — and multiple sources are starting to provide video of exactly that. Here is 12 minutes of gameplay from IGN:
We can see that the game’s spirit seems to be intact: careful neutral game is required because of huge punishes on mistakes and whiffs. Here’s some more from LI Joe:
Or, how about a whopping 44 minutes of gameplay from Gematsu…?
The game is set very early in the franchise timeline, will have 16 fighters in the roster at launch (including three newcomers) and will feature an A.I. training system. From the press release:
Once again set in the late 18th century, after the events of Samurai Shodown V and prior to the events of the original game, Samurai Shodown will see the return of thirteen classic characters, including Haohmaru, Earthquake and Galford, who will be joined by three brand new characters to the series. Additional characters will also be available via post-launch DLC.
Developed in-house at SNK by the same team that brought us King of Fighters XIV, Samurai Shodown features a host of modes, such as Story, Practice, Online Battle and multiple offline battle modes. The new game will also debut an innovative new asynchronous online mode called “Dojo” that uses deep machine learning to create a CPU-avatar that learns from players’ actions during offline modes and creates a Ghost AI character. Players will be able to upload their Ghost to the leaderboards and also download Ghost data from other players. Players can take on Ghosts in 1v1 battle, or take on the Ironman Challenge and attempt to take down up to 100 ghosts in one go.
The game will be published in North America and Europe by the Los Angeles-based Athlon Games. We’re definitely looking forward to “embracing death” this summer!
Sources: Samurai Shodown; Athlon Games [press release]; Long Island Joe; IGN; Gematsu