Soulcalibur VI DLC Discussion Thread

[Himiteshu]

Pls no more guest characters :( Setsuka, Rock, Hwang, Cassandra and Lizardman are crying in the space...

 

[RaphMcSorel]

The only exception i see to that is Amy. I havent noticed a real strong demand for her unless Viola counts for that as well.

Looking at western social media doesn't take Japan into account. Lost Swords had a Japan exclusive popularity poll to determine who (of a handful of significant characters) would make it into the game. The final results were as follows: Amy 39.7%, Seong Mina 23.8% Rock 20.8% Cassandra 15.7%.

Amy slaughtered three very iconic characters. It wasn't even close. Despite this, Cass and Mina still made it into Lost Swords (presumably) because they're so popular in the west.

I'm sick of people acting like only the western segment of the fandom matters.

 

[AMillionHP]

Looking at western social media doesn't take Japan into account. Lost Swords had a Japan exclusive popularity poll to determine who (of a handful of significant characters) would make it into the game. The final results were as follows: Amy 39.7%, Seong Mina 23.8% Rock 20.8% Cassandra 15.7%.

Amy slaughtered three very iconic characters. It wasn't even close. Despite this, Cass and Mina still made it into Lost Swords (presumably) because they're so popular in the west.

I'm sick of people acting like only the western segment of the fandom matters.

I thought it was common knowledge this series only sells a respectable amount in the west.

 

[RaphMcSorel]

I thought it was common knowledge this series only sells a respectable amount in the west.

From what I saw, the newest game did fairly well in Japan (at least on its opening week). Even with what you said, Amy's fans in that country are at least very vocal, and the nation deserves representation regardless. Even just taking the west into account, she still ranked high on the Facebook poll.

Yes, her fans may not have as much of a social media 'presence', but many fans don't spend their time on social media. Plus there's a certain unfortunate 'stigma' that comes with liking her character. People are giddy to throw around certain 'accusations', just like they do towards fans of Talim, so I wouldn't blame them for staying quiet. I've witnessed this during the little exposure I've had to the SC Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit communities.

(If I picked my main based solely off of 'attraction', I'd be spending hours on end playing 2B nonstop.)

 

[FluffyQuack]

Looking at western social media doesn't take Japan into account. Lost Swords had a Japan exclusive popularity poll to determine who (of a handful of significant characters) would make it into the game. The final results were as follows: Amy 39.7%, Seong Mina 23.8% Rock 20.8% Cassandra 15.7%.

Amy slaughtered three very iconic characters. It wasn't even close. Despite this, Cass and Mina still made it into Lost Swords (presumably) because they're so popular in the west.

I'm sick of people acting like only the western segment of the fandom matters.

That poll has always confused me. Cassandra seems to be a pretty popular character overall, but is Rock really more popular than Cassandra in Japan? Just seems odd to me.

And that poll is also an example that Project Soul don't blindly follow the results of polls as Rock never made it into Lost Swords (if I recall, there aren't even any assets related to him among the game files) but Cassandra did.

 

[AMillionHP]

In any case, there kind of isnt a whole lot of characters left anyway. When i say that, what i mean is it depends on how you look at the DLC character count per season. If they do something like 6 characters, they could hit pretty much everybody that is left without scraping the bottom of the barrel in popularity. Doing 3 or 4 characters wont be enough in one season i think but it would be a waste to do a season 3 like that. It would end up including characters that wont sell.

 

[RaphMcSorel]

That poll has always confused me. Cassandra seems to be a pretty popular character overall, but is Rock really more popular than Cassandra in Japan? Just seems odd to me.

And that poll is also an example that Project Soul don't blindly follow the results of polls as Rock never made it into Lost Swords (if I recall, there aren't even any assets related to him among the game files) but Cassandra did.

I get what you mean, but I think that Project Soul just had enough common sense to realize that even though Cassandra isn't all that popular in Japan, they'd be missing out on the western demographic if they excluded her.

Regardless of any weirdness associated with that poll, 39.7% (when compared to the votes the others received) shouldn't be disregarded. It doesn't leave any room for a margin of error.

 

[AMillionHP]

I don't think the list can tell us very much, if anything, at this point; sure, when you pull it apart like that and note that the two most recently added DLC characters are at the top, it can look like there's a little something going on there, but that's only because it strips out a lot of context that is important to reaching any statistical and analytical conclusions reliably. In other words (and said with respect and collegiality for you as a fellow massive fan), I think you are unintentionally cherry picking through a subconscious confirmation bias regarding who you think ought to get in. For one, note that there are no fewer than seven characters well below Amy and Cassie who made it into the base game--where was the popularity poll then?

Note that I'm not saying that popularity plays no roll here (clearly it always will), and I'm not saying that there might not be a bit of a parallel between what those few thousand fans voted on that one poll a while back and larger trends in the consumer base for this franchise. But the statistical links there are tenuous and corporation that has decades of experience marketting media is going to know that. Namco probably wants to ultimately hit a sales target of 2.5-3 million units if it wants to consider this entry a run-away success for a game in this genre with the budget it received at this point for fighters in the game industry (though they probably would be quite happy with 1.8 million, all things considered regarding the market and the extra income they will bring in on DLC content this time around). They are right on track to land somewhere in the middle of that range if projections based on past sales for similar games released around this time of year are any indication, but a lot can change in the roughly year and a half to two years when the bulk of the sales for this game will be made--and notably the season pass model could keep that gravy train running a little longer, though its by no means guaranteed.

Now compare those figures against the largest number of people who voted for anyone remaining on that list, which is roughly 300. With a sales target of 2.5 million, that means those people represent .00012% of the people that Namco hopes will buy this game (to say nothing of the size of the entire pool of consumers whose attention they are jockying for in an extremely crowded industry). That is what a statistician, whether they are a researcher or a marketer, would call statistically meaningless; the sample size is just too insignificant from the total population to draw any reasonable conclusions about what would pull consumers, especially considering that only a small sub-portion of players who buy this game (particularly if it does well) will be returning players. And Namco is big and experienced enough to know all of this, and to have taken it into account long before the first coder even sat down to work on this game.

Long story short--the poll was a low-cost effort to generate initial marketing buzz among the dedicated fans the devs/publisher knew were dying for any news on the franchise, because some of those hyper fans would go on to work as minute-scale influencers. to pave the way for Namco's own in-house marketing. Considering putting a poll up online costs them roughly .000000000001% of their annual marketing budget, and it continues to generate buzz for them two years later as players continue to debate its meaning and thus maintain hype for the DLC, it's a pretty cost-efficient form of marketing. But to update an old saying for the modern era, that poll is not worth the amount it costs to light up the pixels on your screen when it comes to the value it has in terms of indicating what characters to expect next. Yes, Cassie and Amy were at the top of that list, but honestly, we would have known that they were coming regardless; they have decently-sized collections of dedicated fans (which we knew long before there was a poll), but they also fit in neatly with the latter end of the narrative being told in the game.

Elaborating on that last point, remember that correlation is not causation: in other words, Cassie and Amy were selected (in part) because of their overall popularity and they may also appear towards the top of that list because of their relative popularity, but that doesn't mean the list was taken by the devs/publisher to be a reliable indication of that popularity, or that the development team (or Namco in general) have ever used that list to make so much as a single decision on whom to include. In fact, I would suggest that the fact that the initial picks for inclusion came scattershot across that list (especially if you remove the SCV characters that were never going to be included because of the soft reboot/narrative period of SCVI and the fact the SCV is as close to being reviled as any game in the series, for taking things in an odd direction), is rather striking proof that it is has played no role in deciding who comes in and when, and that is has taken a back seat (as one would expect and indeed hope for) to internal development decisions as to which characters best serve gameplay mechanics and creative decisions. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say popularity plays no role--I'm sure it does, especially with key devs having a social media presence these days--but I'm guessing that mental calculus takes place in the mind of the devs based more on a) the troves of other marketting data they possess and b) (probably more important than anything for the creative team) their combined hundreds of years of experience working on the franchise and being familiar with its community. Not some raw figures from a few thousand fans in that one poll, that one time.

Lastly, even if the poll had guided decisions at any point, its now come up against pragmatic marketing and development factors which all but guarantee that the next four names on that list are not going to be the next four in a season 2 DLC pack (if it happens). And yes, I said four there. I know you keep reaching very hopefully towards six, apparently based solely on the fact that Tekken had six guests in its second season pass, but every time you do so, I'm going to (hopefully with good humor that is obvious!) try to snap you back to reality, because I can almost guarantee you that it's going to be four characters if it occurs at all. I won't re-belabour all of the reasons I've already detailed above in this and the other speculation threads recently, but I will point out that the marketing and development situations (and initial DLC approaches) between Tekken 7 and Soul Calibur VI are apples and oranges. Namco have telegraphed an approach to DLC content for this game that I think is pretty clear for anyone --at least, where the observer also pays attention to how companies, development and marketing work in this industry--who really wants to look closely enough at everything they've said so far and (more importantly) everything they have done with the game and bonus content to date. The second season pass, if it happens, will almost certainly roughly parallel the content released in the first, in terms of the amount and type of content offered: it will be four characters (probably including a guest, who will also get their own stage), along with about 100 CaS items. I believe it's also almost a certainty that all of those characters will be male, to achieve parity with the first season. Based upon the narrative era, gameplay considerations, marketing factors and a number of additional considerations that otherwise constrain the choices, I'd say this is roughly what we are looking at (and I bet my order is close even on what order they are announced in):

1) Liz-aeon-man: a lizardman who leans heavily towards classic lizardman with a shield and axe, but with some later Aeon aesthetics worked in. I don't think your suspicion that they would not include both a CaS race and a character is likely to in fact be a barrier here. Afterall, human is (for obvious reasons) a selectable race for CaS characters, despite the regular cast being made up almost entirely of humans. In a similar vein, each game in the series since SCI has been establishing the lore that there is a lizardman species and one particular dude, named Aeon, who was transformed into one. I don't think this is likely to cause too much confusion among even newcomers. The devs will simply retcon their labelling approach from earlier games a little and start calling this character Aeon, as they did in SCV--though again, I suspect his moveset will be more legacy oriented. Afterall, its clear from supplmental materials in earlier games that he was called Aeon all along and that his name on the selection screen was a conceit for the convenience of players who, at the time, cared very little about the lore. (ah, the good old days, when SC's fanbase had their priorities straight!).​

2) A male guest character: Presuming the announcement comes six months into the new year, I still give a reworked Kratos the lead here; I think he could be our first returning guest ever. But admittedly, the marketting timing is not perfect and, in any event, this could be any one of about four dozen obvious choices.​

3) Yun-Hwang: Either Yun-seong or Hwang will return, but I suspect the one left out in the cold will have at least a handful of his moves rolled into the dao wielder that does get in--similar to what has happened with Rock and Astaroth now (and has happened occasionally throughout the series), probably in this instance by locking some moves behind soul charge.​

4) Li Long or Rock: Normally I'd say Rock is the more likely candidate, being as he has an at least somewhat more unique moveset, but I think the fact that some of his moveset was rolled into Astaroth is a strong indication that the devs made a decision some time ago not to include him in this entry. Algol is another outside contender for this last spot, but I think his place in the over-all narrative, his lack of anything but passing mention in the story modes, and the superficial similarity of his weapons (and for that matter, story role) to Azwel's all tend to argue rather strongly against him. I think it's going to be Li Long, entering into the fray as a dark horse.​

​

Believe me, in certain respects I am hoping I am wrong about this. As someone who wants to see as robust a roster as possible (particularly for returning characters) I'd like to think that future season passes could be upgraded to six characters, but I can't fathom Namco opting to do that in this situation (for a variety of reasons that I've detailed previously relating to net profits, cost-efficiencies and pragmatic development and marketing decisions with regard to how they constitute and price something like this); it would basically involve them doing a u-turn that would reduce their overall revenue and make it less predictable while at the same time opening themselves up to (perhaps irrational but certainly inevitable) complaints about the consistency of their pricing model. I just can't see why a major publisher with a developed marketing division would ever do something like that. In a similar vein, I'd much rather see Setsuka or Hilde coming in than Li Long, Rock, or Algol, but I think the reality is that the writing is on the wall for that pair, unless the multiple season pass model is such a runaway success that we see a third sequential season. (I love that idea, but I'm skeptical the profits will extend that far for VI, though I hope each game from here-out anticipates a larger and larger extension of the core cast through DLC; I think it's just a matter of time before this model becomes increasingly profitable, if game consumers can just get over being quite so impulsively defensive about how much they pay for their content on the whole, when it is solid content like this).

All things considered, if it were practical, I'd even bet good money on the list above being more or less what we will see if there's a season 2. I tell you what, let's do it this way as a gentleperson's bet: whoever's guess ends up closest once all of season 2 is revealed (assuming there is a clear winner at that point) gets to pick the other player's main for a two month period. That's almost bigger stakes. ;) You game? :D

Actually let me suggest altering the wager a little bit. These are the characters i'm betting will not show up:

Aeon/Lizardman
Hwang
Li Long
Zwei
Viola
Dampierre

If any of them show up as DLC, i will main each character for a month long period and also change my profile picture here to said character. Even though i'm convinced they wont show up, its not because i personally dislike any of them (except Damp...). So it probably wont be a horrible experience.

I dont know if i'll have videos for proof but i'll at least have occasional images of ranked loading screens to prove im using the characters.

Edit: Actually i forgot about Zwei and Viola. I dont like them either so maybe this will suck for me but i really dont think they are making it anyway.

 

[Rusted Blade]

That goes into another point which is Lizardman. He's kind of the opposite in that he has some importance but was thrown to the side. I'd say in his case PS decided to do just barely enough work to identify him with a moveset and that is it. They even copy/pasted his SC4 armor. Lizardman is different from other characters in this series because his race is the majority of his identity. He is just defined as a beast, with a savage, beast-like moveset. A major appeal to even selecting this character is the lizard model. That is why a lot of people would even select that character in the first place. He is identified as the leading figure among Lizardmen but how does that look when people can just select ninja, sorcerer, or monk lizardmen? It makes Aeon look rather primitive and ridiculous. We dont have human characters in the game who are just named "human man". There is a little bit more to them than that. Such as language, a personality, backstory. Lizardman has growls and not much else. Of course he's got fans who wont appreciate him being gone but so do a lot more popular characters.

I just don't think any of that stands as a realistic barrier to Lizardman's inclusion--the most it is likely to inspire is that they change Lizardman's name to Aeon earlier in the lore/gameplay than they did the last time around, if that. Anyone looking for a particularly high level of realism, sense, cohesion, and self-consistency in their Soul Calibur storytelling kind of missed the message as to what has been on offer for the the last 23 years worth of games.. Not withstanding Namco's efforts to foreground the asinine story this time around--a rather misplaced priority for development resources that comes more from their (probably realistic) belief that they cannot ignore the whinging of bush league consumers who continually demand a major story component, regardles of whether the story is going to be any good as a result--I still don't see why "we have lizard people, and that's alright--but by god we can't have some of them crawl on the ground and some of them stand more upright--that would be breaking the immersion!! Now, on to the next thing: storywise, does anyone think we have enough teleporting ninjas and feudal era demons/wooden cybors?" would rule the day and block a classic style that is an important piece of the tapestry they are trying to recreate here. Not only am I certain he will arrive in a season two if there is one, I'm betting he is announced first. [Edit: also, no such consternation about mixing and matching Lizardmen styles has been evidenced in the story modes, where a version of what you term the more "animalistic" lizardman fights side by side with CaS styles of all sorts.]

I dont even know what to say about Li Long. I dont want to come off like an ass. Everyone has characters they like but umm... really Li Long? Ok.

Not sure where the emphasis on genders for DLC is coming from but a lot of popular females just happen to be left over and that i believe is why season 1 is all female. Now, did they maybe decide to push back Yun so they could make season 1 all females because "waifus sell"? Maybe.

Hey, what's so wrong with Li Long!? At least he gets the dignity of reasonably period appropriate clothing and hair, unlike our other nunchuku wielder and his anime-meets-Elvis-impersonator look! ;) Beyond jokes abotu aesthetics, Li Long's SCIII:AE moveset actually had quite a bit of potential in it. I wouldn't main him, and frankly, I place him in that list only because he fills out the last of the SE-SCIII male characters not yet introduced. there's just no clamour for multiple nunchukers, nevermind that they play fairly differently, the last time we saw them in a game together. But I certainly wouldn't call anyone out for being a supporter--he's got a better argument for inclusion in this entry than many characters, based on what we know of dev priorities. He's my back-up call, for sure, but not an unreasonable one, I'd argue.

As to the ultimate cause of the gender divide, I think you are half-correct there. What I believe happened is that a short list was arrived at for all of the legacy characters who could be placed into SCVI relatively easily in a pair of season passes, and when they settled on the final picks (making room for one or two guest characters) they realized they had exactly equal numbers of male and female characters and someone who liaisons between the development and marketed teams jumped on that--because matched sets (whatever the dividing factor) provide the kind of hook that marketing teams tend to get behind, and since it fit the picks here, why not release them in that fashion? I don't think it was the result of any effort to balance the roster's gender representation, but it's virtually certain that four female characters in a row didn't happen as a statistical accident. Given what evidence we have so far, I think this is the most likely explanation and a strong indication that season 2 will be all-male, for parity with the first season--which will also more or less completely fill in the missing SE/SCI characters, give or take a Li Long or a Rock if they decide to do a second guest character.

Actually let me suggest altering the wager a little bit. These are the characters i'm betting will not show up:

Aeon/Lizardman
Hwang
Li Long
Zwei
Viola
Dampierre

If any of them show up as DLC, i will main each character for a month long period and also change my profile picture here to said character. Even though i'm convinced they wont show up, its not because i personally dislike any of them (except Damp...). So it probably wont be a horrible experience.

I dont know if i'll have videos for proof but i'll at least have occasional images of ranked loading screens to prove im using the characters.

Edit: Actually i forgot about Zwei and Viola. I dont like them either so maybe this will suck for me but i really dont think they are making it anyway.

Hahah, seems more like a bet with yourself at that point, but I'll be here for some good-humoured "How is it going with THAT guy?" jokes. ;) I think you're absolutely safe with regard to Viola, ZWEI, and Dampierre--if someone came up to me on the street and told me they thought those three characters were going to get into SCVI DLC season 2, I'd ask if they had a caretaker around so I could make sure they got home safely. I gotta tell you though, I think you're gonna be playing some Lizardman, with a 50% chance of Hwang on the side! Luckily those two are pretty fun with a little practice (or at least have been in past entries), so you're not running much risk. :)

 

[AMillionHP]

I just don't think any of that stands as a realistic barrier to Lizardman's inclusion--the most it is likely to inspire is that they change Lizardman's name to Aeon earlier in the lore/gameplay than they did the last time around, if that. Anyone looking for a particularly high level of realism, sense, cohesion, and self-consistency in their Soul Calibur storytelling kind of missed the message as to what has been on offer for the the last 23 years worth of games.. Not withstanding Namco's efforts to foreground the asinine story this time around--a rather misplaced priority for development resources that comes more from their (probably realistic) belief that they cannot ignore the whinging of bush league consumers who continually demand a major story component, regardles of whether the story is going to be any good as a result--I still don't see why "we have lizard people, and that's alright--but by god we can't have some of them crawl on the ground and some of them stand more upright--that would be breaking the immersion!! Now, on to the next thing: storywise, does anyone think we have enough teleporting ninjas and feudal era demons/wooden cybors?" would rule the day and block a classic style that is an important piece of the tapestry they are trying to recreate here. Not only am I certain he will arrive in a season two if there is one, I'm betting he is announced first. [Edit: also, no such consternation about mixing and matching Lizardmen styles has been evidenced in the story modes, where a version of what you term the more "animalistic" lizardman fights side by side with CaS styles of all sorts.]



Hey, what's so wrong with Li Long!? At least he gets the dignity of reasonably period appropriate clothing and hair, unlike our other nunchuku wielder and his anime-meets-Elvis-impersonator look! ;) Beyond jokes abotu aesthetics, Li Long's SCIII:AE moveset actually had quite a bit of potential in it. I wouldn't main him, and frankly, I place him in that list only because he fills out the last of the SE-SCIII male characters not yet introduced. there's just no clamour for multiple nunchukers, nevermind that they play fairly differently, the last time we saw them in a game together. But I certainly wouldn't call anyone out for being a supporter--he's got a better argument for inclusion in this entry than many characters, based on what we know of dev priorities. He's my back-up call, for sure, but not an unreasonable one, I'd argue.

As to the ultimate cause of the gender divide, I think you are half-correct there. What I believe happened is that a short list was arrived at for all of the legacy characters who could be placed into SCVI relatively easily in a pair of season passes, and when they settled on the final picks (making room for one or two guest characters) they realized they had exactly equal numbers of male and female characters and someone who liaisons between the development and marketed teams jumped on that--because matched sets (whatever the dividing factor) provide the kind of hook that marketing teams tend to get behind, and since it fit the picks here, why not release them in that fashion? I don't think it was the result of any effort to balance the roster's gender representation, but it's virtually certain that four female characters in a row didn't happen as a statistical accident. Given what evidence we have so far, I think this is the most likely explanation and a strong indication that season 2 will be all-male, for parity with the first season--which will also more or less completely fill in the missing SE/SCI characters, give or take a Li Long or a Rock if they decide to do a second guest character.



Hahah, seems more like a bet with yourself at that point, but I'll be here for some good-humoured "How is it going with THAT guy?" jokes. ;) I think you're absolutely safe with regard to Viola, ZWEI, and Dampierre--if someone came up to me on the street and told me they thought those three characters were going to get into SCVI DLC season 2, I'd ask if they had a caretaker around so I could make sure they got home safely. I gotta tell you though, I think you're gonna be playing some Lizardman, with a 50% chance of Hwang on the side! Luckily those two are pretty fun with a little practice (or at least have been in past entries), so you're not running much risk. :)

We'll just have to wait and see. I'll personally enjoy buying a season pass of Aeon, Hwang, Li Long. I just dont think any of them are coming. Maxi is very annoying to me but people do like him and i hate Yun. He comes off like a douchey, dude-bro teenager who constantly got kicked out of class in high school.

Zwei and Viola... well i'll have to admit there is a lot of bias in that from me. In their case its less about whether i think they are coming and more like i hope they arent. I really, REALLY dont want to see them. But i'll admit i've seen a lot of people demand Viola. Less so for Zwei but people have demanded him too. I hope PS regards SC5 as too far a time skip to include those characters. They were very disappointing.

Dampierre... Soulcalibur never needed a satirical joke character.

 

[Rusted Blade]

We'll just have to wait and see. I'll personally enjoy buying a season pass of Aeon, Hwang, Li Long. I just dont think any of them are coming. Maxi is very annoying to me but people do like him and i hate Yun. He comes off like a douchey, dude-bro teenager who constantly got kicked out of class in high school.

Zwei and Viola... well i'll have to admit there is a lot of bias in that from me. In their case its less about whether i think they are coming and more like i hope they arent. I really, REALLY dont want to see them. But i'll admit i've seen a lot of people demand Viola. Less so for Zwei but people have demanded him too. I hope PS regards SC5 as too far a time skip to include those characters. They were very disappointing.

Dampierre... Soulcalibur never needed a satirical joke character.

Well personally, where characters are concerned, my focus has always been on the play mechanics rather than the art design of the default models. Indeed, if a significant amount of questionable character design choices was a driving factor for me, I would have stopped playing the series a long time ago. Besides, these days its pretty simple to CaS your way around such concerns, even if you want to practice exclusively under tournament conditions. I'm just much more concerned about having access to as many classic styles as possible, and having them out there in the ocean of opponent selections, even if I never had much interest in playing them myself.

That said, I don't think you have anything to worry about with regard to Dampierre or literally anyone from SCV. The character farthest into the original narrative we might realistically see is Hilde, and I'm thinking even she has only a far outside chance. Yun-seong's certainly in the running though (though like you, I would prefer Hwang).

Though I don't think there's the remotest chance of her inclusion in SCVI, I actually found Viola's style to be one of the very, very few positive developments with SCV's roster (that game was a misfire in so many ways when it comes to broad-stroke design choices, but even in areas where it largely blundered, it had the occasional positive feature). On the flip side, I will say that, whether the theory that she is meant to be an amensiac Amy is true or not, her style was by no means a reasonable replacement for Amy's style. Still, of all of the SCV exclusive characters I should like to see return at some point in future game installments (and there are a few), Viola is at the top of the list. She was tricky as hell to make work, but truly unique with a compelling move flow. In a perfect alternate reality where there were four or five season passes (as opposed to the more realistic one or two we are likely to see) I'd be very happy to see her back.

Speaking of ZWEI, am I the only one who feels like that emo edgelord has to be Groh's little brother? I can totally see ZWEI sneaking into Groh's room to steal his The Cure and My Chemical Romance cds and hair dye...

 

[DanteSC3]

Speaking of ZWEI, am I the only one who feels like that emo edgelord has to be Groh's little brother? I can totally see ZWEI sneaking into Groh's room to steal his The Cure and My Chemical Romance cds and hair dye...

Nah, I think they're one in the same. Z.W.E.I.'s backstory as written in New Legends of Project Soul is very similar to Grøh's, and E.I.N. may be a future development / an unforeseen consequence of Azwel's experiments. It's certainly not impossible, with Raphael's story foreshadowing SoulCalibur V still happening, that this is a really sneaky way to give Z.W.E.I. an origin story, to catch us off guard with the reveal in SoulCalibur VII.

 

[Rusted Blade]

Nah, I think they're one in the same. Z.W.E.I.'s backstory as written in New Legends of Project Soul is very similar to Grøh's, and E.I.N. may be a future development / an unforeseen consequence of Azwel's experiments. It's certainly not impossible, with Raphael's story foreshadowing SoulCalibur V still happening, that this is a really sneaky way to give Z.W.E.I. an origin story, to catch us off guard with the reveal in SoulCalibur VII.

I mean, on the one hand, my main thought to any kind of genuine speculation about these characters is "...Meh?"; I was really just using the reference to their similarities to make some snarky commentary on the goofy emo-anime turn in the storytelling and art direction in SCV, which to some small degree has been preserved in the two new original characters in SCVI. Which is not to say that the narrative of Soul Calibur was ever particularly well constructed or to be taken very seriously--but it truly jumped the shark in Super Street Calibur V, for rather obvious reasons.

That said, I'll bite: sure the two have a strong aesthetic/design similarity, but they also have noticeably different facial models; wouldn't those have been kept much more consistent if they were supposed to be the same person? Then again, I guess anything can be explained away in a story this out-there and cornball.

 

[DanteSC3]

If Amy and Viola are the same, their facial models changed a bit too, due to aging, but what did stay the same were their eyes, and Grøh and Z.W.E.I. also share the same pale blue eyes. We don't really know how old Grøh is, but he's either late teens or early twenties, so he's still got a little chiseling to do in the facial department. I don't see it as that much of a stretch, personally. Z.W.E.I. is also, unfortunately, relatively unknown, even with New Legends of Project Soul, we don't really know a lot about him, so there's only so many parallels that you can really draw. It could be nothing, or it could be everything. The only way we'll really know is what may or may not happen in the future.

 

[Rusted Blade]

If Amy and Viola are the same, their facial models changed a bit too, due to aging, but what did stay the same were their eyes, and Grøh and Z.W.E.I. also share the same pale blue eyes. We don't really know how old Grøh is, but he's either late teens or early twenties, so he's still got a little chiseling to do in the facial department. I don't see it as that much of a stretch, personally. Z.W.E.I. is also, unfortunately, relatively unknown, even with New Legends of Project Soul, we don't really know a lot about him, so there's only so many parallels that you can really draw. It could be nothing, or it could be everything. The only way we'll really know is what may or may not happen in the future.

Eh, I don't know about some of that, but in any event, I just hope the next original characters we get in six or seven years don't look like they shop at hot topic and wield some actual historical weapons instead of whatever anime nonsense some junior concept artist thought looked "cool" and edgy. Seriously, SCII was the actual last game in the franchise where, as new styles were concerned, the movesets rooted in historical weapons outweighed those styles predicated on made-up goofy weapons (/magic/demon sidekicks...). I'm down with the variety, but jeebus, enough with the anime influence completely hijacking the style of the combat--there's a whole world of actual cultures and actual melee combat out there to be tapped, and those styles often add gravity and style to the visual appeal of a game, because, being at least marginally more constrained/anchored to real-life movement (hey, I said marginally!!) they more closely parallel actual human biomechanics, and even someone who doesn't know a whole lot about actual martial arts, historical combat, or human physiology can still often sense that there is something more natural (and thus also more entrancing) about those movements than the fantasy ones that are created to support completely unrealstic weapons that never existed in any historical combat because they would be completely impractical (or because they are made comepletely out of glowing magic...). That and jesus, where are these guys getting their purple hair dye?

 

[Heniek]

Eh, I don't know about some of that, but in any event, I just hope the next original characters we get in six or seven years don't look like they shop at hot topic and wield some actual historical weapons instead of whatever anime nonsense some junior concept artist thought looked "cool" and edgy. Seriously, SCII was the actual last game in the franchise where, as new styles were concerned, the movesets rooted in historical weapons outweighed those styles predicated on made-up goofy weapons (/magic/demon sidekicks...). I'm down with the variety, but jeebus, enough with the anime influence completely hijacking the style of the combat--there's a whole world of actual cultures and actual melee combat out there to be tapped, and those styles often add gravity and style to the visual appeal of a game, because, being at least marginally more constrained/anchored to real-life movement (hey, I said marginally!!) they more closely parallel actual human biomechanics, and even someone who doesn't know a whole lot about actual martial arts, historical combat, or human physiology can still often sense that there is something more natural (and thus also more entrancing) about those movements than the fantasy ones that are created to support completely unrealstic weapons that never existed in any historical combat because they would be completely impractical (or because they are made comepletely out of glowing magic...). That and jesus, where are these guys getting their purple hair dye?

I second this with both my hands and feet. Up untill SC III the series were more on the lower fantasy side and even in SCIII where we had a guy with a Scythe and gal with a hula hop blade they still didn't turned out too over the top. I think that it all fell down in SCIV where the series jumped onto that high fantasy horse and then it was just getting more and more flashy with over the top stuff. I do understand it may azwell be necessary nowadays to bring audience but I really do miss the times when my nystagmus didn't go crazy because of too much flashiness.
As for the purple dye - now we know that Groh is a richboy. That could explain his edgyness a bit

 

[sytus]

As for the purple dye - now we know that Groh is a richboy. That could explain his edgyness a bit

It's not purple it's blue but the purple attire is used by other members of the Aval Organization which as we know is another name for Avalon, part of the King Arthur legend which is royalty.

 

[Heniek]

It's not purple it's blue but the purple attire is used by other members of the Aval Organization which as we know is another name for Avalon, part of the King Arthur legend which is royalty.

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You got me there. Can't stand Groh as a character so I couldnt remember the colour of his hair even less so his lore

 

[Nyte]

Nah, I think they're one in the same. Z.W.E.I.'s backstory as written in New Legends of Project Soul is very similar to Grøh's, and E.I.N. may be a future development / an unforeseen consequence of Azwel's experiments. It's certainly not impossible, with Raphael's story foreshadowing SoulCalibur V still happening, that this is a really sneaky way to give Z.W.E.I. an origin story, to catch us off guard with the reveal in SoulCalibur VII.

They're not. That's fitting a square peg into a round hole.

 

[Frayhua]

Nah, I think they're one in the same. Z.W.E.I.'s backstory as written in New Legends of Project Soul is very similar to Grøh's, and E.I.N. may be a future development / an unforeseen consequence of Azwel's experiments. It's certainly not impossible, with Raphael's story foreshadowing SoulCalibur V still happening, that this is a really sneaky way to give Z.W.E.I. an origin story, to catch us off guard with the reveal in SoulCalibur VII.

They're not similar because Grøh continues to get buffed and was great from the start unlike Z.W.E.I.