Tournaments

One of Namco's key talking points in the development of Soul Calibur V has been their desire to support the tournament community after the release of the game. With the interaction between 8WayRun, FilthieRich and Project Soul being constant, the next logical step would be for Namco to provide direct support to the community run events.

This morning, I got some news that was nothing short of an amazing surprise. Interested? Read On!

On Wakeup SRK Live, Mr. Wizard announced the lineup for EVO 2012 which takes place in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 6-8, 2012, with Soulcalibur V officially in the lineup as one of the main games for 2012.

Shoryuken has some additional details on this year's lineup and 2012 tournament season. Check after the break for some additional details that was mentioned during the live announcement.

On Wakeup SRK, it was announced that the lineup for EVO 2012 will be officially announced during a live broadcast of the show with Mr. Wizard on Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 10PM Eastern/7PM Pacific. Along with the announcement, there will be questions taken from viewers that Mr. Wizard will answer, along with other details that will be provided about EVO 2012.

Is Soulcalibur V a lock to make it into the lineup? What about Street Fighter Versus Tekken? Does Mortal Kombat return for another year? Make your predictions in the comments and tune in on Tuesday night to find out.

While SoCal Regionals was taking place this past weekend, France was also having their own tournament for Soulcalibur V at a session organized by Namco Bandai Games which took place on December 17th.

The tournament videos, which have been provided to us by Deus-Kaliya, feature players such as Keev, Dina, Hayate, Kayane, Scud, Varghas, Akire, and DTN. Maybe one of the French players can provide some details on the actual tournament for us, so check after the break for the match videos.

The final major tournament for Soulcalibur IV is now in the books here at NEC XII in Philadelphia, PA. Competitors from across North America and Europe participated in one of the toughest tournaments that I have seen during the life of this game, along with those who came to try out the demo build of Soulcalibur V.

I would like to thank everyone who came through to NEC, to the European players for flying over to compete, to the staff who helped keep things going, and to Namco Bandai for their support of NEC XII. Everyone had a hand in making NEC an amazing success.

Well North East Championship 12; which is basically the most important tournament in North America for the Soulcalibur community is this weekend! Most are considering this the last hurrah for SC4 and this is also the first hands-on public appearance for SC5 and TTT2 in America.

Originally, we toiled with the idea of not doing a "team" tournament this time around... but after numerous complaints we have decided to bring it back; but slightly altered. We will be doing a team tournament, but the teams will be "random". Players name's will be placed in a hat, and players will be paired up at random.

Signup for the SC4 Random Team Tournament begins at 1:00pm on Saturday, December 3. Registration will close at 1:45pm; Because we need a number of players divisible by 3, if we don't get a rounded number of players, the last player or two will have their entries refunded... Signup for the SC4 Singles tournament will begin immediately towards the end of the Team tournament.

Masakarijin, who runs MASTERCUP which is a Tekken 5 on 5 tournament series, and who today became a member of 8WayRun, has added match videos to the Media section from the tournament that was held at Tokyo Game Night 30. You can find the videos, which are in 1080P, after the break.

I'm also looking forward to the tournament series which also kicked off at TGN 30 called Strike. Strike will also be holding a final tournament for Soulcalibur IV before moving onto holding events for Soulcalibur V.

Today, Alex Valle posted the official trailer for Southern California Regionals 2011, which is being held at the University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California on December 17-18, 2011, where Soulcalibur V will also be making an appearance at the event. If you are unable to make it to NEC XII, you now have another public event to go to to try the game out before its release.

I would also like to thank FilthieRich and Namco Bandai for bringing Soulcalibur V out to another event. You can find the trailer after the break or by clicking on the icon from the front page.

Project Soul and Tokyo Game Night will be holding a special event for Soulcalibur V at TGN 30th Night, where there will be 14 hours of Soulcalibur V coverage in two 7 hour blocks, and is taking place at the Clark Memorial International High School in Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan.

The event, which will run from 12PM - 4AM Japan time, will include multiple sessions where the developers will talk about the game, exhibition matches with the development team, and a singles tournament. Further details, local start times, and an embed of the stream can be found after the break.

This is just a preliminary plan. Nothing has been decided yet and we don't even know if Namco-Bandai is planning anything. But if they are not, we need to have our own.

I have not had much discussion with others interested in running Nationals; but I was hoping to get support from Idlemind, AkazukinChaCha, Hates, and Neorussel. In efforts of transparency though, I'm posting my ideas publicly and hoping for approval, criticism or ideas from the tournament community.

So these are my initial ideas... Most have been determined based on past history...