Soul Calibur VI: General discussion

I mean it was practically impossible to tell Setsuka's story without getting Mitsurugi's side of things too. So that's just them using a creative way to tell the story instead of just text descriptions of Mitsurugi's exploits, actually having you play as him through it, more impactful that way. I really have no idea about the Grøh episode, though, it was just so random and pretty pointless, too. Establishing one small link in the chain of his story and yet not addressing his survival from his showdown with the Conduit, which seems like it would have been more impactful than a musing over Maxi and a flashback about Curtis and a fight with some Lizardmen and a Cult Priest. I just... don't really know what it was really going for. Hwang really doesn't necessitate any other such side stories for his story, unless they're adding new elements and inbetweens. But as "free content updates" go, filling in more gaps with occasional Soul Chronicle Side Stories isn't the worst idea in the world, if they choose to do so. I don't have strong expectations on it one way or the other.

@Rusted Blade -- There you go taking my optimism too literally again. :p
 
I got a reply from Mr SC6 Director person on the whole Raphael idle pose thing!


I don't think we'll be getting that SC2 Raphael idle pose any time soon, though... At least it's nice to know why they didn't bring it back.
Good work
However, Yun Seong and Maxi have poses with a lot of movement, and Maxi actually slightly sidesteps as well. Guess its not a universal rule
 
isn't this the main english speaking hub ? I know the majority of discussion is decentralized across like 25 discord channels now
Did the japanese or french communities speak up ?

*many people in many soulcalibur forums

SORRY for my English!!!!
 
That's a bit of a false choice: it could very, very easily be neither of those options. It's virtually certain that we are many years off from them beginning development of SCVII, if 25 years of franchise history are anything to go by (literally every game in the series has taken significantly longer to be released than the one before, even at the franchise's greatest heights, matching a general trend in the industry at large). And a Soulcalibur game has never entered production until after the most recent Tekken game has been released and is well established--this being because Project Soul is not a standing internal studio at Namco but rather an ad-hoc team that borrows much of it's staff from other Namco projects, with only a core team of developers kept on the team consistently from early pre-development all the way through (these days) late DLC support--both interviews with senior developers and the timetable of DLC make this pretty clear. So, pipe dreams aside, we're looking at the middle of this next decade (at earliest) for SCVII.


Actually SCVI is the first time there’s been a gap of more than four years between major instalments in the series. Prior to SCVI every mainline game came out either every three or fours years after the previous entry. I’m assuming SCVI and its DLC has sold relatively well, especially in comparison to SCV, so I’d be slightly more optimistic that SCVII is taken more seriously by Bamco and gets a higher budget, and comes out within the next four or five years.
 
Funny. I don't have A problem with it.
Steps to the side to avoid the nascent flame war. ;D
Actually SCVI is the first time there’s been a gap of more than four years between major instalments in the series.
Well, actually, that's not at all factually inconsistent with anything I pointed out. What I said, accurately, is that every single mainline game in the series, across 25 years of franchise history, has taken longer than the one before it to be released, matching a much broader trend for sequels and titles generally. Unpleasant as it may be, when we're talking about seven straight games, that means something. And I'm not saying that trend has become so ironclad that it should be treated as a physical law--it could and probably will be broken at some point in time if the series continues for long enough. But I have to seriously doubt that it will be this iteration, when the series is only just getting its legs again and the industry (along with the rest of the economy) is likely to be struggling somewhat in the next few years.

I’m assuming SCVI and its DLC has sold relatively well, especially in comparison to SCV, so I’d be slightly more optimistic that SCVII is taken more seriously by Bamco and gets a higher budget, and comes out within the next four or five years.
Yeah, that's the common refrain for people embracing pie-in-the-sky prognostications about the timing for the next game in the series. But here's the problem with that: it's based on a whole lot of speculation about as solid as appraisals of the beauty of rainbows and the pleasantness of puppy hugs, and then a whole lot of not any tiny little bit of empirical data. Namco does not release sales figures for their titles, typically, and has not for this game, and the only thing they have said to give any indication (which I hesitate to even credit as a "hint") was a few months after the game was released when they said they were generally satisfied with how the game was performing. That proved to be enough for nearly this entire community to leap to the conclusion that it was selling like gangbusters and then coast from then until now on good feelings and the presumption that we're headed into a new golden age of greater love for the title from the parent company (which I would argue we need to temper given the pace and promotional support for the DLC), but the fact of the matter is, we just don't know.

The only real hint we have is that there was a season two, which tells us the install base for the game was at least large enough to justify them taking a chance on that. But that doesn't really tell us much, considering they probably would have pursued that season pass with a very marginal profit margin, since they are very clearly trying to make the continuing support model the new standard for their games in this genre. Look, I really do hate to be the Debbie Downer on this topic, I do, but I'm just trying to keep it real--particularly since dashed expectations can be quite bad for consumer morale. I personally can't imagine we'll see SCVII before 2024. It's a case where I'll be absolutely thrilled to be proven wrong, but looking at all of the factors....
 
Anybody feel like the new stage is a combination of the SCII Japanese stage with Setsuka’s in the background? At least it’s not a recolor.

Also, I wish it didn’t start during the day and looked too similar to Haohmaru’s stage.

That aside while venting about stage lighting, for those of us who like taking screenshots of our CaS outside the default background, we could at least get an option in training to change the time of day and whatnot...
 
What I said, accurately, is that every single mainline game in the series, across 25 years of franchise history, has taken longer than the one before it to be released

That’s simply not true though:

9C470771-D862-4990-8FE3-4CF9AD7BF29A.jpeg
 
we don't need a SCVII asap if we have years of DLC to bolster SCVI....

Can you imagine how absolutely awful SCVI would be without any patches or DLC? Its been nice to see the quality of DLC go up from Season 1 to 2 (even if the CAS stuff is always hit or miss)

While I think its weird how almost every DLC character feels like they have some RPG/MMO mechanic now (just kidding) I think if the devs like this and are passionate about implementing it....might as well embrace it.
 
they do this to add "depth" to the character (a subset of unique resources) while making execution less strict.
Maybe its to compensate for online, or to attract newer players and to lower the execution barrier.

I wonder if they addressed this during the round-table
 
That’s simply not true though:

View attachment 77948
Just so we're on the same page, when I refer to the "mainline" games, I am talking about the sequential multiplayer games that received a console release: Soul Edge, Soulcalibur, Soulcalibur II, Soulcalibur III, Soulcalibur IV, Soulcalibur V, and Soulcalibur VI. I suppose things get messy when you try to decide whether the console release should govern or the earliest release when talking about the era when the entries came out in the arcade first. But let's just use the earliest date of any release for any given game to simplify things. Using that standard, you are right: there is one exception to the rule of the span of time being larger for each sequential game--the wait between Soulcalibur and Soucalibur II was a little longer than that between Soulcalibur II and Soucalibur III. Nevertheless, the general trend is pretty obvious (and again, isn't exactly surprising or mystifying if you look at the increased development time for the industry at large).

In fact, it was nearly seven years between the last two games (January 2012 to October 2018), and those were good sales years for the industry. Again, I'll be happy to be proven wrong about this, but I don't think I will be. If the game comes out in 2024, it will still be around two years faster than this last cycle, and to do that, it would have to buck general trends, fight the massive profile of other Namco properties looking for attention, somehow account for the fact that most of the critical staff would still likely be working in continuing support roles for the next Tekken game at this point, and overcome the longterm effects of a massive recession on capitol. So even an expectation of around 2024 is rather optimistic--hoping for anything more than that is just setting yourself up for disappointment, I'm afraid.
 
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To be clear, I'm not saying we should be rushing out of SoulCalibur VI just to get to SoulCalibur VII earlier, and I do feel like 2024 is probably a good target to expect SoulCalibur VII's release, I'm just saying that, if we didn't get a season three, for whatever reason, it could possibly mean we'd be getting the next game earlier, because if the Project Soul people are being taken to work on other projects, then that means those other things are going to get made, which will then free up Project Soul folks earlier, which would then lead to SoulCalibur VII coming out earlier as well.

If we do get a season three, though, just being open and honest here, I really don't see Aeon, Guest (unless that guest is HUGE), Yun-seong, and either Rock or a new character, drawing in as many sales as Tira, 2B, Amy, and Cassandra or Hilde, Haohmaru, Setsuka, and Hwang. So that being true, it puts a possible damper on the likelihood of a season three being a certainty. SoulCalibur just unfortunately does not have the massive rosters that other fighting games have to pull DLC characters from, and they seem less inclined to make new characters as DLC, at least so far as they've shown.

But then, let's assume we do get a season three, would we then get a season four? I really don't think so. The effective pool of characters remaining at that point would be Li Long, Algol, and Dampierre, assuming we still have to have a guest, which is presumed true until they release a season pass that doesn't have a guest in it. And... yeah, Li Long, Algol, Dampierre are not really names that move sales. They have their fans, to be certain, but I can't imagine very much true hype being generated around that group of characters, unless there was another new character put in to replace one of those three.

And being completely generous that we do somehow get a season four, then a season five just becomes practically impossible, because there's just no one left, literally no characters left that aren't one-offs, the kids, or Z.W.E.I., and while we might could get Z.W.E.I., I have my personal doubts for the same reason that I don't believe we can see Viola in SoulCalibur VI, that their time is indeed for the future, in SoulCalibur VII, and not before. Amy is already confirmed to not turn into Viola as of 1590, so it would just be strange to have her ahead of schedule. And I don't see Z.W.E.I. working before then either.
 
The problem with dismissing characters like Rock, Li Long, Algol and Dampierre is that they really weren't given a chance to have their fan bases grow compared to other characters either through lack of appearances or any proper development, hence the clone stigma. However, SC6 is the best shot they have because today's Project Soul appears to be clued in on how to make legacy character unique and fun as fuck. I can't wait to see what they do with Hwang as I'm sure all his new stuff will convince people that all the legacy can make a worthy return.
 
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