Category: Fighting Games

With patch 3.9 rolling out for Killer Instinct, players may begin to notice a new feature when setting up exhibition matches. As well as the usual “Allow Crossplay” toggle which allows Xbox One and Windows 10 players to face off against each other, an “Allow Cross-Network” switch has also been added. While it isn’t active yet, this switch confirms that the upcoming Steam release of Killer Instinct will have cross network play between Steam, Xbox One and Windows 10 players.

According to Killer Instinct community manager Rukari Austin, this feature may appear and disappear intermittently, as the teams at Microsoft and Iron Galaxy put the finishing touches on the Steam version of KI. The feature will not affect your matchmaking experience at this point in time, so don’t worry about toggling it on or off.

Killer Instinct‘s Steam version is set to launch within the next few weeks and there are more features to be announced, so keep an eye out for more information. As someone who has bought everything on Xbox One, I hope one of the features will give current KI players access to the Steam version with all of the characters unlocked.

Source: Ultra-Combo

It is often said that without Street Fighter II, modern fighting games would not exist in the format that they exist now. While much is made about how well the game played, Ars Technica decided to go a different route in their appreciation of the 25-year-old title.

In their article, they discuss how the development team squeezed so much into 12 bits of power. They discuss how complex the color palette is, allowing for the detailed and iconic graphics and stage design that we still admire today. They also discuss the iconic music that is still rehashed and revamped in every iteration of Street Fighter since, with the only exceptions being Street Fighter III and the third installment of the Street Fighter Alpha series.

Source: Ars Technica

Hot off the heels of East Coast Throwdown — and with the release of Fighter Pack 2’s Black Manta rapidly approaching — NetherRealm Studios has released the September update (version 1.08) for Injustice 2.

Mentioned in the last Watchtower Livestream, this update introduces Ranked sets, allowing for players to rematch their opponents in a 3-out-of-5 tournament setting, similar to Street Fighter V, as they try to claim their place on the newly-reset Leaderboards. Player Matches have now been split into “Versus” and “Competitive Versus,” along with a new Competitive King of the Hill, allowing players who tend to prefer longer sets with friends to now have that opportunity without having to worry about falling prey to gear users with immensely powerful customized characters.

There are also two new Shaders for the entire cast, along with the introduction of a new gear rarity level — Legendary — on top of significantly improved sorting and Mother Box opening options, to further streamline the customization process for your favorite heroes and villains.

A myriad of bug fixes were also implemented, along with some significant balance changes for DLC characters Sub-Zero and Starfire. The Lin Kuei Grandmaster’s Killing Blow (3,3) string will no longer whiff on crouching foes, and he can now link his Low Chop (D1) into his Ice Shatter (DB1), due to increased Hit and Cancel Advantage. Meanwhile, the Tamaranean Princess, who has yet to see competitive play, has received several damage nerfs and can no longer link her Side Scratch (D1) into her Meter Burn Star Dust, due to a reduction in Cancel Advantage. Big Bodies, like Bane and Swamp Thing have also seen a 1% damage increase to most of their Specials, due to them now being correctly adjusted by the Ability Stat in the last patch. Aquaman will also now be doing more damage off of his regular and Meter Burn versions of Trident Scoop, due to the original scaling increase being larger than intended. You can view the full patch notes for yourself below.

General Gameplay fixes

• General stability and Online stability improvements
• Move list corrections and improvements to AI logic
• Online Ranked Match has been replaced with Ranked set which are first to 3 wins
• Player Match and Private Match can now be searched with Competitive Mode on
• From within an online lobby room you can now challenge player to 1v1 and KOTH matches with Competitive Mode on
• Fixed a rare issue where placing a wager during Clash with high latency on some controller configurations could result in the wrong bet being used
• Added Xbox Arena support for User Generated Tournaments on Xbox One
• Player can now equip gear dropped after a match or from a Mother Box to that character’s current default loadout
• Gear can now be bulk selected in a characters inventory screen with simple and advanced filters
• Gear can marked as favorite which prevents it from being sold or deleted
• Fixed many special moves being affected by the strength attribute instead of the ability attribute. Swamp Thing and Bane have had some damage increases noted below to compensate for this
• Fix for some character select and character viewer animations on premier skins
• Fixes to visual effects priority with Scarecrow’s & Cyborg’s supermoves
• Fixed audio issues with several attacks being interrupted
• Multiverse – fix for Swamp Thing’s sidekick being able to make a character unresponsive if interrupted with specific timing
• Several Gear Abilities with Down, Down inputs that were still not changed to require a more precise input when buffered now do so
• Fixed an issue which was preventing Starfire gear abilities from dropping from Mother Boxes and Multiverse Event rewards
• Completion requirements have been reduced for all Guild Mulltiverse tiers
• AI Loadouts can now be used in Guild Multiverse events

Stage Specific Fixes

• Arkham Asylum – Fix for toilet interaction having a displaced hit region when interrupted in certain circumstances
• Atlantis – Bug fix for interrupting wall run interaction under certain circumstances preventing it from being used again
• Batcave – Fixed a bug causing the hit region of the motorcycle interaction to linger after being interrupted by certain attacks
• Batcave – Fix for rare situation where players could use a teleport move to be outside the boundaries of the stage

Character Specific Fixes

• Aquaman – Fixed a bug causing combo damage scaling on Trident Scoop and Trident Scoop MB to be larger than expected
• Aquaman – Fixed a rare issue that could cause Aquaman’s trident to be misaligned after hitting an opponent with Deep Sea (Towards + Medium, Light + Hard)

• Atrocitus – Fixed rare bug that could cause Brute Slam (Down + Hard) to have longer than normal recovery when hitting Flash while he has Speed Zone character power active

• Bane – Heavy Hammer (Light, Light, Medium, Down) and Fist Slam (Towards + Medium, Down) recovery on hit increased by 2
• Bane – Increased Base damage on several special moves by 1 to compensate for them being now being correctly adjusted by the Ability stat

• Batman – Fixed a rare bug that could case Batman’s Flying Kick follow-up from Straight Grapple to sometimes go in the wrong direction

• Black Canary – When Front Handspring is interrupted by Firestorm’s Molten Trap, he will no longer then sometimes pass through Black Canary while immediately following up with Heat Wave (Away + Hard)

• Blue Beetle – Fixed issues with hit regions while character power is active if you attack immediately following a Roll Escape

• Brainiac – Fixed a bug that allowed Tendril Smash MeterBurn (Towards + Hard, MB) to be air escaped
• Brainiac – Fixed a bug that prevented Beta Strike’s hit region to be increased while opponent is in a combo
• Brainiac – Fixed bug causing Beta Strike and Beta Bomb blockstun and hitstun being shorter than expected if it collides with the opponent immediately following a blocked Pneumenoid Dive

• Catwoman – After hitting with Cat Dash and Cat Dash MeterBurn Catwoman can no longer sometimes forward dash through the opponent
• Catwoman – Cat Stance now requires a more precise input when buffered

• Cyborg – Fixed the ability to perform Back/Forward grapple as a 2in1 cancel while Input Shortcuts are turned off in controller options

• Deadshot – Fix a bug which could result in a lingering empty clip from his end of round win animation

• Firestorm – Missing with (Air) Fusion Charge then immediately performing Heat Wave (Away + Hard) will no longer sometimes cause Firestorm to pass through his opponent

• Green Arrow – Fixed bug that caused Green Arrow to be briefly immune to high attacks if he started Take Aim character power while crouching and immediately jumped while holding the arrow
• Green Arrow – Fixed rare issue that would cause Green Arrow’s bow to be misaligned after missing with Stinger

• Harley Quinn – Fix for hyenas summoned from her character power appearing in the wrong position in certain circumstances

• Joker – Rolling Gas can no longer be MeterBurned after it is destroyed by things such as Sub-Zero’s Ice Klone and Captain Cold’s Death-cicle MeterBurn which would result is wasted super meter

• Red Hood – Lethal Lunge MeterBurn while Hidden Explosive Gear Ability is equipped now does 8 less base damage
• Red Hood – Akimbo Blaze & Akimbo Blaze MeterBurn Gear Ability now does 3 less base damage

• Robin – Fixed rare issue with Assassin Strike causing the hit animation to not work properly if hitting on the last active frame
• Robin – Fixed hit FX sometimes appearing in the wrong location on many sword attacks

• Scarecrow – Fixed a bug that caused Fear Flame to fully charge Scarecrow’s character power meter when colliding with certain projectiles

• Starfire – Reduced the base damage of My Little Bumgorf (Light, Light), Grishnik Got Your Tongue? (Medium, Light), and Call Your Knorfka? (Medium, Hard) by 1
• Starfire – Reduced the base damage of Star Strikes (Away + Medium) by 2
• Starfire – Increased combo damage scaling when canceling into Starbolt character power
• Starfire – Side Scratch (Down + Light) has 2 less cancel advantage
• Starfire – Burning Desire & Shooting Star base damage reduced by 1
• Starfire – Reduced base damage of Star Dust by 2 and Star Dust MeterBurn by 1
• Starfire – Tamaranean Charge is now airborne on frame 4
• Starfire – Star Slam gear ability can now be directed close
• Starfire – Fixed a bug which could cause some lingering visual FX after end of round win animation
• Starfire – Fixed some hair clipping issues

• Sub-Zero – Function-Kneeing Properly (Hard) has its hit region adjusted, has 10 less frames of recovery on hit/block/miss, 10 less frames of blockstun, and slightly less pushback on block
• Sub-Zero – Killing Blow (Hard, Hard) had its hitregion adjusted
• Sub-Zero – Low Chop (Down + Light) has 1 more frame of cancel advantage, 2 more frames of recovery, and has 1 more hit advantage
• Sub-Zero – Fixed rare issue where several attacks when pushing an opponent into Ice Klone which would cause it to have slightly reduced blockstun

• Supergirl – (Air) Heat Vision Gear Ability will no longer sometimes change impact location after destroying Sub-Zero’s Ice Klone

• Superman – Fixed some visual FX being the wrong color when using Bizarro skin

• Swamp Thing – Increased Base damage on several special moves by 1 to compensate for them being now being correctly adjusted by the Ability stat

Will update with full notes if/once they’re released.

What are your thoughts on these patch changes? Are you excited about the addition of Ranked sets, Competitive Player Matches and Legendary gear? Give us your thoughts in the comments.

Source: Test Your Might

When Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite launches later this month, it will do so with more modes than its Capcom stablemate Street Fighter V did so last year. One of these modes is the traditional arcade mode, something that the latter has yet to receive to this day. Now, a recent preview has given us some insight into what MvC:I’s arcade mode will entail.

Brazilian site Collectible 506 recently got a chance to try the some of the game’s single-player mods out thanks to Capcom-Unity Brasil. Based on the preview, arcade mode in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite will consist of 8 fights, 6 of which will be against team of two other characters. One surprising thing, however, is that there will be a mini-boss before fighting the final boss. While they don’t mention who this character is, they state that anyone following the game’s development should know who this is.

In addition to this, they also detail the rewards for completing arcade mode.  After beating the mode, additional colors will be unlocked for the characters that the player used. While no details on how many colors would be unlocked, or if this would be the only way to unlock colors, it’s nice to see a way to do so that doesn’t seem to be as tedious as Street Fighter V‘s Survival mode.

Other details covered by the preview include previously know details — such as the graphical upgrades done to characters like Chun-Li, and the contents of story mode.

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite launches on PlayStation 4, XBox One, and PC on September 19.

Source: Collectible 506 via Shoryuken forums

The ARIKA EX game continues to make the event rounds as it proceeds though development.

ARIKA’s work-in-progress (and still officially untitled) fighting game will be playable at the upcoming Indie Megashow Tokyo, set to take place in Roppongi, Tokyo, on Wednesday, September 20. The event, presented by Dangen Entertainment, will showcase a variety of indie titles, including Senko no Ronde 2, and the innovative shooter SUPERHOT. See the event’s Facebook page for the full list, and for other ticket/event information. In-house music will be provided by Mega Ran and DJ Uppercut.

The event will be streamed on Twitch, but the channel is not yet specified. No word yet if ARIKA has any new surprises to show when they bring their game to the Megashow.

Get to know the returning EX cast of ARIKA’s fighter with these high-resolution portraits.

Thanks to Scott for the tip.

Source: Indie Megashow Tokyo (Facebook)