Ultimax characters have finally arrived!
Last Saturday was a huge day for fans of BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, as Arc System Works finally unveiled the final five characters that will be joining Senran Kagura Estival Versus’s Yumi, Akatsuki Blitzkampf’s Akatsuki and Blitztank, and RWBY’s Neo Politan this November in the game’s upcoming Version 2.0 update.
The company held two streams to show off this new quintet of fighters, with one in the new North American headquarters in California, which featured special guests James Chen and UYU|TheBeautifulDude, as well as their traditional Japanese stream, that has been customary for character reveals since pre-release.
The five new challengers who can’t escape from crossing fate are BlazBlue’s Celica A. Mercury and Susanoo, Persona 4 Arena’s Elizabeth, Tohru Adachi from Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, and Hilda from Under Night In-Birth. Additionally, Ragna teased the possibility of even more characters joining the ever-growing cast that now sits at 53 at the end of the trailer by asking who was next, something Ruby Rose also questioned before the reveals of Rachel Alucard, Hazama, and Weiss Schnee.
In addition to playing several matches and demonstrating how these fighters all compare to their past incarnations, we were also given a glimpse of the new character select screen, which features fighter’s having the color of their respective franchise behind them when highlighted, as well as their portraits being placed inside diamonds when selected.
It should be noted that Adachi remains on the end of the Persona 4 Arena column, with the logo changing to Persona 4 Arena Ultimax when he’s chosen. Additionally, Yumi, Akatsuki, and Blitztank have joined Heart Aino in the newly-added 5th tab that heralded her arrival back in May, which will now change colors and logos to reflect the series of the character you’re choosing, effectively making it a “Guest Character” column.
This not only potentially opens the door for other Ultimax characters, like Rise, Sho, Marie, and Margaret, to join the game in future updates, but also characters from the Akatsuki Blitzkampf sequel En-Ens Perfektewelt, such as Kati and the titular En-Eins, who were both in the massive datamine of announcer calls that also included the nine characters joining the game in Version 2.0, and perhaps even Londrekia from the newly-announced EXE:Late[cl-r] that was announced at Evo 2019 and will be arriving in early 2020.
The Versus/Order Select screen has also seen a sleek makeover, with character portraits being in larger boxes that are now on top of each other, rather than beside one another, similar to the Versus Screen of Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes. You can see the full trailer below, as well as both of the streams, which contain large amounts of footage of the newcomers, as well as matches between James Chen and UYU|TheBeautifulDude, who were the first American players to try out the characters.
A demo of the new update will be available this weekend at CEOtaku 2019 in Orlando, Florida, as well as at ARCREVO America
The official Japanese website has also been updated with screenshots of this new set of fighters in action, which you can also see in the gallery below.
Gallery
Source: arcsystemworks (YouTube); Arc System Works America (YouTube); JROKGaming (YouTube); BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle Official Japanese Website