How will the new timeline diverge from the old?

Nyte

Fu-ma's Shadow
Soulcalibur VI is a reboot that brings the series back to the classic era of the series, covering SCI and some of SCII, done in part to get out of the time skip SCV left the series in. Considering that it's unlikely we'll ever be going back to the SCV era, at what point do you think the new timeline of SC will diverge from the old and how do you think it will?

I expect maybe in Soulcalibur VII (which I assume will cover SCIII and SCIV) we'll reach the point where Siegfried defeats Nightmare, and Hilde pardons him for his crimes. Then when it seems the ending is happy once and for all, we cut to Algol with a sinister smile. He says something like "All is going according to plan. The swords may have eluding me in the past life, but they shall be mine again. And when I collect them, the world will be my own!"

Having known how the timeline was altered, he plans to make sure to prevent what happened in that era by collecting both swords and taking over this one. Algol being an cosmic interdimensional being who was the oldest wielder of Soul Edge and the creator of Soul Calibur, I can easily see him "jumping" from the old timeline to the new. I can also see Zasalamel, being a time lord and all, having knowledge of the past timelime and taking his own steps in the ring (it may explain why he's in SCVI despite the game not reaching his debut).

Afterwards, this sets the stage for a new post-SCIV era of the series that doesn't make the time jump SCV did. Seems like a sound idea to me. What do you think?
 
I don't think it will at all, personally. SoulCalibur VII would cover SoulCalibur II, III, and IV, since all three of those games take place in the same year, and mostly everything would take place the same, but like SoulCalibur VI, the story would be more fleshed out with more details and things than we ever got before. Then, SoulCalibur VIII can actually cover the 17 years following SoulCalibur IV, instead of just making the leap haphazardly, and introduce us to all of the new characters properly, actually flesh out their characters and make us care about them, and all that sort of thing. I don't believe that SoulCalibur V in and of itself was bad, it's just how it was handled that was what made it bad.

You could be right, we might see a divergence of events after SoulCalibur IV's events, because it was handled so poorly before, but I believe it deserves a second chance to be handled correctly. But either way, I don't expect anything to change before then, just more details.
 
No way they're getting rid of the most marketable characters again after the SCV backlash. And uh, they kinda already are diverging from the original timeline. I mean, I don't recall this guy existing back then.

SC6_Groh_Art[1].jpg
 
It remains to be seen until we know Grøh's full story. It's still possible he may be the same guy as Z.W.E.I., you know. And his father may be the original Graf Dumas. Even if neither of those things are true, new characters don't mean the story will be changed. Expanding on what happened before isn't the same as changing it.

From what we've seen so far, the story from SoulBlade still happened, the story of SoulCalibur will still happen, and the story leading up to SoulCalibur II will still happen. So Grøh really must not have had much of an impact in the grand scheme of things, possibly only affecting Kilik, a localized event, maybe something that brought him shame that he locked up in his past and never brought up before is why we never heard about it.

And they don't have to get rid of the characters like they did in SoulCalibur V originally whenever SoulCalibur VIII happens. Just look at Tekken for proof of that, where there are multiple characters who have the same basic styles but with unique quirks. Instead of cutting the old and replacing them with the new, I'm saying that we'll keep the old this time and also get the new alongside them.
 
Groh being part of a secret organization smacks of "we're not changing stuff very much."

It's like when they unveiled Darth Vader's apprentice (hey, SoulCalibur-related). There was this big to-do about this all-new, canonical character addition to the main Star Wars cannon. Surprise, surprise, he was a secret apprentice who went on secret missions. Wow, lots of revelations there.

And they did it again with Star Wars Battlefront II. They promised that the single-player campaign would directly impact the events of Star Wars Episode 8. What's that, you say? A secret mission? You guessed it. And wow! There's a two second easter egg that references the mission! What a payoff.

Anyway, the point is that secret organizations pretty much exist so that they don't influence the story in any obvious way. Also, I guess my secondary point is Star Wars is stupid. Don't @ me.
 
Well seeing as how they went through his whole thing just to get out of the time skip, I highly doubt we're ever going back to it. So going by that, it means that there must be a point where the series diverges from the old to prevent the time skip from happening.
 
This tweet was posted in the General Discussion thread, figured I'd post it here too since it might be hinting at a change in the story:
The "fearsome potential" of Kali-Yuga was mentioned in the old timeline as well, but I'm thinking they might actually do something with it this time around. Maybe Kilik will lose the ability to handle Kali-Yuga and will become a second Nightmare of some sort. Or someone else (Grøh?) might try to take the staff and suffer that fate.
 
Well seeing as how they went through his whole thing just to get out of the time skip, I highly doubt we're ever going back to it. So going by that, it means that there must be a point where the series diverges from the old to prevent the time skip from happening.
Eh, I think you're making a lot of assumptions here.

1. You're assuming they're planning to make more SoulCalibur games. Considering SC6 almost didn't happen, I very much doubt a seventh game is guaranteed.

2. You're assuming they're planning the story out ahead of time. The producer/director of SC4 (and Broken Destiny) left Project Soul. The producer/director of SC5 left after that game came out. The director of Lost Swords is also gone. I bet the people behind SC6 are thinking "timeline problems? Those will be someone else's problem to worry about."

3. You're assuming they couldn't just spin their wheels forever. There are ways besides retcons they could avoid the year 1607. So, just imagine this scenario: SoulCalibur 7 (2023) is a remake of SC2. SoulCalibur 8 (2028) is a remake of SC3. SoulCalibur 9 (2033) is a remake of SC4. SoulCalibur 10 (2038) is a non-storyline game. And SoulCalibur 11 (2045) is another remake of SC1.

I mean, why not? SoulCaliburs 2 - 4 pretty much retold the same story over and over again anyway, so fans seem okay with repetition. StreetFighter is another series that did an unpopular time skip (SF3), and they simply decided to set all future Street Fighter games before it. They simply re-tell the storyline people liked (Shadoloo is bad) and bring in a few popular characters from SF3. That's another way that SoulCalibur could just spin its wheels forever. Daishi speculated that there could be interesting stories to tell from the 17 year gap between 4 and 5.

But you could be right. If SC7 does happen, it could be directed by an entirely new team who will reboot the series from scratch, genderswap all the characters, and set it in the future. My position is that all evidence points to SC6 being a re-telling of the original game's storyline and history shows that Project Soul will probably take the laziest route possible in story-telling.
 
No one wants to see Patroklos again, so no thanks. Also, can we PLEASE stop with the "Groh is Z.W.E.I. guys", because that makes as much since as "Alejandra is Sombra" in Overwatch.
Right!? It's much more likely the new character (groh's dad) is a grizzled old Patroklos or Z.W.E.I.

Sombra is using Tracer tech so if she is actually from the future (weird theory about Sombra I've seen going around recently) perhaps she is Alejandra.
 
Eh, I think you're making a lot of assumptions here.

1. You're assuming they're planning to make more SoulCalibur games. Considering SC6 almost didn't happen, I very much doubt a seventh game is guaranteed.

2. You're assuming they're planning the story out ahead of time. The producer/director of SC4 (and Broken Destiny) left Project Soul. The producer/director of SC5 left after that game came out. The director of Lost Swords is also gone. I bet the people behind SC6 are thinking "timeline problems? Those will be someone else's problem to worry about."

3. You're assuming they couldn't just spin their wheels forever. There are ways besides retcons they could avoid the year 1607. So, just imagine this scenario: SoulCalibur 7 (2023) is a remake of SC2. SoulCalibur 8 (2028) is a remake of SC3. SoulCalibur 9 (2033) is a remake of SC4. SoulCalibur 10 (2038) is a non-storyline game. And SoulCalibur 11 (2045) is another remake of SC1.

I mean, why not? SoulCaliburs 2 - 4 pretty much retold the same story over and over again anyway, so fans seem okay with repetition. StreetFighter is another series that did an unpopular time skip (SF3), and they simply decided to set all future Street Fighter games before it. They simply re-tell the storyline people liked (Shadoloo is bad) and bring in a few popular characters from SF3. That's another way that SoulCalibur could just spin its wheels forever. Daishi speculated that there could be interesting stories to tell from the 17 year gap between 4 and 5.

But you could be right. If SC7 does happen, it could be directed by an entirely new team who will reboot the series from scratch, genderswap all the characters, and set it in the future. My position is that all evidence points to SC6 being a re-telling of the original game's storyline and history shows that Project Soul will probably take the laziest route possible in story-telling.
For some reason, I believe SCVII is much more guaranteed and less of a wait than SCVI. It seems that there are far less issues behind the scenes.
 
I hope you're right.

But my biggest doubt is related to that Project Soul team member who tweeted about how soul-crushing his work environment was. He never explicitly mentioned it was related to work on SoulCalibur VI, and perhaps it was influenced by personal issues outside of work. But still, I worry Okubo and his team are having a rough time working on the game.
 
I'd like to see more of how Azola influenced Sophie into serving soul edge myself. But then I just tend to like minor characters more. Ehh. But I feel like grøh will be a behind the scenes kinda guy story wise, who mainly targets kilik.
 
Having known how the timeline was altered, he plans to make sure to prevent what happened in that era by collecting both swords and taking over this one. Algol being an cosmic interdimensional being who was the oldest wielder of Soul Edge and the creator of Soul Calibur, I can easily see him "jumping" from the old timeline to the new. I can also see Zasalamel, being a time lord and all, having knowledge of the past timelime and taking his own steps in the ring (it may explain why he's in SCVI despite the game not reaching his debut).

Afterwards, this sets the stage for a new post-SCIV era of the series that doesn't make the time jump SCV did. Seems like a sound idea to me. What do you think?
Timeline's not altered though. They've said that the story in SCIV won't change established canon in earlier games.
 
I think the timeline will likely be very similar to the original, with the aval org, talim, zas and tira added, honestly. Imo, with talim and zas around there's a lot that could change, though I can't think that bamco would make a drastic change.

Kilik and zas appear to have some sort of interaction. I can't remember the vid myself, but if I find it I'll attach it. Zas and kilik have interaction lines.
Zas: Well then, let us proceed as planned.
Kilik: ok, you asked for it.
 
But then you get to the point where divergence is necessary. That being the end of SCIV. Since I doubt we're going back to the SCV era again, they'll have to find a way to continue from there.
 
Yup, from there, I think there's a good chance there won't be a time skip. This gives a lot more room for the aval organisation to be fleshed out. It also gives us a chance for insight into what happened in those years. The time skip is not necessary. The timeline could diverge in that Sophie never dies, and attempts to hunt Azola, Durer, and Tira, to prevent them from creating a new nightmare. They could also look into how kilik and maxi almost switched roles between sciv, and scv. There's a lot missing in the middle. Theres also Ashlotte and the mass produced astaroths. There's a lot to do between sciv and scv
 
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