Soulcalibur VI DLC Discussion Thread

I personally think it's in poor taste to wall a fully fleshed out playstyle like Yun-seong's behind a character like Hwang. While the chances of either Korean returning to the series is low and has always been low, if someone's going to return it's probably going to be Yun-seong.
 
Fatal_Exodus said:
I personally think it's in poor taste to wall a fully fleshed out playstyle like Yun-seong's behind a character like Hwang. While the chances of either Korean returning to the series is low and has always been low, if someone's going to return it's probably going to be Yun-seong.
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First off, Yun-seong is not significantly more "fully fleshed out" than Hwang, who has featured in all of the first four entries in the franchise and who, last we saw him in SCIII:AE, had as deep a moveset as Yun-seong. Yun-seong has featured in only three games and though his most recent appearance was one game later than Hwang's, SCIV wasn't an especially deeper game (in terms of the number of distinct moves per style) than was SCIII:AE.

But of more relevance, I think your belief that the chances of either dao wielder (it doesn't make sense to call them "the koreans" since there are four such characters in the series, one of which is already in SCVI) returning "are and always have been low" is just plain dead wrong, and I'm mystified as to why you believe this. Sure, these two may not rank high in that one poll (representing about 0.00001% of the people who have already bought SCVI, nevermind those who have played the franchise as a whole)--which is the only thing I can imagine is causing you dismiss them so profusely--but there are a -lot- of other factors at play here, not the least of which are the devs' own impressions as to who ought to feature as a matter of continuity and balance--which perspectives they have given us a lot of evidence concerning.

Taking all of the factors together, I think its virtually a certainty that if there is a second season pass, one of the dao wielders will feature. Indeed, if there is a second season's worth of characters, and Hwang or Yun-seong is not announced first, it will only be in the event that Namco decide to announce Lizardman first, and then the dao wielder will follow second. I feel the writing is very much on the wall with this one if you take all narrative, marketing, and production details together. You can feel free to call me back here in eight months time if I am wrong, and I'll gladly and sheepishly eat crow (since I'm calling out your read as impulsive and ill-considered), but I don't think that's going to happen.

All of that said, I can't for the life of me (despite giving it some thought) figure out which of the two is likely to be the one selected. I think Hwang just based on the aesthetic and gameplay decisions made by the devs of VI to date, but it's very difficult to say. Personally I prefer Hwang and think he makes more sense given the stated priortities for VI, but Yun-seong has a much more dedicated following and I think it likely that there would be a furor if he was one of just two or three SE-SCIII characters who didn't make the cut. I seriously imagine some players losing their %$@# over that, because he's one of those characters (like Talim or Amy) who hasn't always been the single most popular character over the duration of the series, but whose proponents really, really favour his unique style.
 
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DanteSC3 said:
@Sectus seems to think it's basically guaranteed here.
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But i wonder how possible it is for the file names to just be anything without actually being the characters? Sectus does seem convinced and i assume he knows what he's talking about obviously far more than me. But it was true that different file names were used in Tekken as i understand it and i gotta think they had to be smart enough to know we would dig it up sooner or later. Hell, it only took a day. Maybe they wised up and used fake file names to troll us?
 
AMillionHP said:
But i wonder how possible it is for the file names to just be anything without actually being the characters? Sectus does seem convinced and i assume he knows what he's talking about obviously far more than me. But it was true that different file names were used in Tekken as i understand it and i gotta think they had to be smart enough to know we would dig it up sooner or later. Hell, it only took a day. Maybe they wised up and used fake file names to troll us?
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It is technically possible Namco is being extremely mean and they added these names as placeholders, but I don't think that's the case. It wouldn't be very consistent (2B is among game files as "2B" and they've done nothing to try to hide the SC1 music DLC), it would be very weird they would use likely DLC candidates as codenames (I imagine it would lead to some weird work discussions: "So, uh, was it Amy or Cassandra who's actually Hilde?"), and also, they've accidentally leaked so much stuff since the announcement of the game. I just don't think they care that much about hiding unannounced content. 2B and Geralt were probably the two things they tried their best to keep secret.

Another thing, one of the mentions of Cass and Amy are definitions for the UE4 editor to tell it to not include files for Cass and Amy in a release build. That kind of mistake makes me think they're not actually fully aware of which files end up in a release build.

Edit: One more thing to add, they're also referred to as their internal ID numbers (0x17 and 0x30). Bottom line is, if this is some kind of super-elaborate ploy by Namco I will eat my shoes. I'm 99.99% certain we know the season pass characters.
 
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Sectus said:
It is technically possible Namco is being extremely mean and they added these names as placeholders, but I don't think that's the case. It wouldn't be very consistent (2B is among game files as "2B" and they've done nothing to try to hide the SC1 music DLC), it would be very weird they would use likely DLC candidates as codenames (I imagine it would lead to some weird work discussions: "So, uh, was it Amy or Cassandra who's actually Hilde?"), and also, they've accidentally leaked so much stuff since the announcement of the game. I just don't think they care that much about hiding unannounced content. 2B and Geralt were probably the two things they tried their best to keep secret.

Another thing, one of the mentions of Cass and Amy are definitions for the UE4 editor to tell it to not include files for Cass and Amy in a release build. That kind of mistake makes me think they're not actually fully aware of which files end up in a release build.

Edit: One more thing to add, they're also referred to as their internal ID numbers (0x17 and 0x30). Bottom line is, if this is some kind of super-elaborate ploy by Namco I will eat my shoes. I'm 99.99% certain we know the season pass characters.
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It also just fits with every bit of non-code evidence we have concerning developer priorities with regard to VI and the rough chronology that has been established for re-introducing characters, to say nothing of the fact that these were obvious picks that always stood near the top of the list for being DLC characters. Moreover, I agree that it is unlikely in the extreme that Project Soul/Namco would be trolling their potential customers. What could they possibly stand to gain from alienating two dedicated portions of the fanbase who thought they were about to get their mains back only to have it turn out to be some dickish ploy? However, I definitely would consider the possibility that the revelation was an intentional "leak" meant to bolster interest in the DLC; consider that once you have players sleuthing to figure out what is coming next, you basically have a captive audience for marketing and a sort of self-propelling hype train. I think it's either that or, as you suggest above, they are at least ambivalent to any concern about showing their hand and just aren't killing themselves to lock things down.
 
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Rusted Blade said:
First off, Yun-seong is not significantly more "fully fleshed out" than Hwang, who has featured in all of the first four entries in the franchise and who, last we saw him in SCIII:AE, had as deep a moveset as Yun-seong. Yun-seong has featured in only three games and though his most recent appearance was one game later than Hwang's, SCIV wasn't an especially deeper game (in terms of the number of distinct moves per style) than was SCIII:AE.

But of more relevance, I think your belief that the chances of either dao wielder (it doesn't make sense to call them "the koreans" since there are four such characters in the series, one of which is already in SCVI) returning "are and always have been low" is just plain dead wrong, and I'm mystified as to why you believe this. Sure, these two may not rank high in that one poll (representing about 0.00001% of the people who have already bought SCVI, nevermind those who have played the franchise as a whole)--which is the only thing I can imagine is causing you dismiss them so profusely--but there are a -lot- of other factors at play here, not the least of which are the devs' own impressions as to who ought to feature as a matter of continuity and balance--which perspectives they have given us a lot of evidence concerning.

Taking all of the factors together, I think its virtually a certainty that if there is a second season pass, one of the dao wielders will feature. Indeed, if there is a second season's worth of characters, and Hwang or Yun-seong is not announced first, it will only be in the event that Namco decide to announce Lizardman first, and then the dao wielder will follow second. I feel the writing is very much on the wall with this one if you take all narrative, marketing, and production details together. You can feel free to call me back here in eight months time if I am wrong, and I'll gladly and sheepishly eat crow (since I'm calling out your read as impulsive and ill-considered), but I don't think that's going to happen.

All of that said, I can't for the life of me (despite giving it some thought) figure out which of the two is likely to be the one selected. I think Hwang just based on the aesthetic and gameplay decisions made by the devs of VI to date, but it's very difficult to say. Personally I prefer Hwang and think he makes more sense given the stated priortities for VI, but Yun-seong has a much more dedicated following and I think it likely that there would be a furor if he was one of just two or three SE-SCIII characters who didn't make the cut. I seriously imagine some players losing their %$@# over that, because he's one of those characters (like Talim or Amy) who hasn't always been the single most popular character over the duration of the series, but whose proponents really, really favour his unique style.
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Yun-seong always had the more developed playstyle because he was designed as the masculine analogue to Xianghua, whereas Hwang straight up borrowed portions of her moveset for much of his lifespan. Hwang was demoted to bonus character in SCIII, and despite AE being a thing, only Amy came out of that game as an actual returning and non-bonus character of the roster in IV.

One would think Hwang would make a return to the roster in VI, which is essentially a reboot of SCI, aka a game that he was actually in, but he didn’t even make it in beyond a refurbished version of his SCI attire, so yes, I’m gonna think the dao users are not high priority for the game.
 
Hwang isnt coming back. Now is his chance to come back if he ever was going to and it didnt happen. He conflicts with Yun and Yun will eventually need to replace Hwang anyway. So in that sense putting Hwang in the game now would be a waste of time and effort on PS's part. He's like a guest character who will never return with none of the positive effects of brining new players.

I dont really want this to dig up the whole duplicate weapon/clone character debate but i'll just say this: There are specific reasons its acceptable with other characters. I cant find any good excuses for Yun and Hwang to be in the same game. Excuses that other clones do have. Best i've heard is dual swording one of them but that is stepping into Cervantes' territory.

On a personal note i'd like to say that i dislike Yun and was looking forward to Hwang but i think the realistic truth is Hwang will be skipped.
 
sytus said:
But they are both in SC2, Assassin is pretty much confirmed to be Hwang, it's just that SC6 doesn't outright say it.
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But is that a good enough reason by itself to say they should both make it here and now?

I'd rather see Hilde, Setsuka, Rock, Algol, Valeria and some previous guests as CAS styles all before i want to see two Dao.
 
Fatal_Exodus said:
Yun-seong always had the more developed playstyle because he was designed as the masculine analogue to Xianghua, whereas Hwang straight up borrowed portions of her moveset for much of his lifespan. Hwang was demoted to bonus character in SCIII, and despite AE being a thing, only Amy came out of that game as an actual returning and non-bonus character of the roster in IV.

One would think Hwang would make a return to the roster in VI, which is essentially a reboot of SCI, aka a game that he was actually in, but he didn’t even make it in beyond a refurbished version of his SCI attire, so yes, I’m gonna think the dao users are not high priority for the game.
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I'm afraid that you've misremembered some of those details a little (or had them inaccurately related to you at some point). First off, Hwang was not created as a masculine analog to Xiangua; Hwang pre-dates Xiangua by a game and was introduced as a localization variant on Mitsurugi in SE for the Korean market (strange as that may seem from how different they play in their latest incarnations respectively). In SCI, Hwang and X do share a certain superficial similarity in how they fight, but they only have a couple of moves in common (similar to Amy and Raphael) and are otherwise distinct; by SCII they shared no moves, though there remained some visual/aesthetic overlap. BY SCIII:AE, Hwang, Xiangua, and Yun-seong each had their own completely independent movesets, and Xiangua and Hwang didn't even look particularly similar in their movement.

AMillionHP said:
Hwang isnt coming back. Now is his chance to come back if he ever was going to and it didnt happen. He conflicts with Yun and Yun will eventually need to replace Hwang anyway. So in that sense putting Hwang in the game now would be a waste of time and effort on PS's part. He's like a guest character who will never return with none of the positive effects of brining new players.

I dont really want this to dig up the whole duplicate weapon/clone character debate but i'll just say this: There are specific reasons its acceptable with other characters. I cant find any good excuses for Yun and Hwang to be in the same game. Excuses that other clones do have. Best i've heard is dual swording one of them but that is stepping into Cervantes' territory.

On a personal note i'd like to say that i dislike Yun and was looking forward to Hwang but i think the realistic truth is Hwang will be skipped.
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Not every character is going to be 2B, bringing in new players, nor even Amy, to sweeten the pot for returning players. Some are just there to fill out the roster to represent the dev's vision and, you know, just make a good, varied fighting game. That said, I agree with the basic thrust of your arguments there: I don't think both Yun-seong and Hwang are returning. But I'm still pretty certain that should there be a season 2 (and it's looking increasingly likely if still uncomfirmed that there will be) one or the other will be the first or second character announced for that season. And it's really difficult to say who it will be. Hwang has the edge in being a better fit with SCVI's roster and the general narrative and stylistic priorities the devs have leaned on so far, but Yun-seong is significantly more popular with top-tier players from the SCII-SCIV arc, who are more likely to be returning consumers than are other past players who may have wandered away from the franchise.

I believe this may be the toughest, most inscrutable question that the fanbase has had to try to puzzle out with regard to SCVI's roster, the question of which of them will return, but the related question of whether one of them will return is not tough at all, in my opinion: if there is a season 2, one of them will be in it--I'm highly confident about that. Mind you, neither of these guys ever has been a main for me, and I'm hardly about to cry foul if they aren't included, but I believe that if one looks at the way in which SCVI has been developed so far, it's clear one of these two will ultimately make it into the roster, if there are additions beyond the first DLC (and for reasons I won't bother you with repeating here, that seems all but certain as well).

One a side note, it's nice to see one of the true bonus styles from SCIII getting some love, but you do realize that even if there is in fact an infinite number of parallel universes, there's not even one of them wherein Valeria will ever get released as SCVI DLC character? But I've got a consolation prize for you, assuming you have't seen it before: and this is not the only time this particular auteur seemed to be taking direct inspiration from Soul Calibur.
 
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Cassandra and Amy being selected for Season 1 does heavily imply that popularity poll is what they are prioritizing for DLC characters.

Cassandra - 339
Amy - 311
Yun-seong - 295
Setsuka - 214
Viola - 201
Hwang - 193
Hilde - 154
Z.W.E.I. - 113
Lizardman - 76
Rock - 71
Li Long - 65
Algol - 59
Dampierre - 54

I went ahead and removed all characters already on the roster, anyone from SC5 that isnt Zwei or Viola for obvious reasons and anyone below Dampierre seems negligible.

The poll suggests Yun will be next in line and i do think they will skip over Hwang. However, i dont believe they will prioritize popularity to such a degree that would allow Zwei and Viola to make the roster. That is too much a timeskip and i feel that is a line they will not cross, even if there is some demand for them.

I'll stick by my belief that Hwang is not making it and i'll also throw Li-Long into that boat as well for a similar reason.

I also think Lizardman will not be bothered with. I understand he has fans but it really feels like selectable Lizardmen on CAS definitely sours him as a character and i think PS will feel the same.

That imo puts the season 2 list at Yun, Sets, Hilde, Rock, Algol, Guest. That example i gave is just following the Tekken Season formula. Of course we may not get that many characters and they may have more guests next season or maybe none.
 
AMillionHP said:
I'll stick by my belief that Hwang is not making it and i'll also throw Li-Long into that boat as well for a similar reason.
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Noooo.jpg
 
AMillionHP said:
Cassandra and Amy being selected for Season 1 does heavily imply that popularity poll is what they are prioritizing for DLC characters.

Cassandra - 339
Amy - 311
Yun-seong - 295
Setsuka - 214
Viola - 201
Hwang - 193
Hilde - 154
Z.W.E.I. - 113
Lizardman - 76
Rock - 71
Li Long - 65
Algol - 59
Dampierre - 54

I went ahead and removed all characters already on the roster, anyone from SC5 that isnt Zwei or Viola for obvious reasons and anyone below Dampierre seems negligible.

The poll suggests Yun will be next in line and i do think they will skip over Hwang. However, i dont believe they will prioritize popularity to such a degree that would allow Zwei and Viola to make the roster. That is too much a timeskip and i feel that is a line they will not cross, even if there is some demand for them.

I'll stick by my belief that Hwang is not making it and i'll also throw Li-Long into that boat as well for a similar reason.

I also think Lizardman will not be bothered with. I understand he has fans but it really feels like selectable Lizardmen on CAS definitely sours him as a character and i think PS will feel the same.

That imo puts the season 2 list at Yun, Sets, Hilde, Rock, Algol, Guest. That example i gave is just following the Tekken Season formula. Of course we may not get that many characters and they may have more guests next season or maybe none.
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I don't think Cassandra and Amy are necessarily proof that they're blindly following the Facebook list. It definitely matches up with it, but they were also characters who returned in Lost Swords. I'm thinking it was a combination of factors (popular characters, maybe there are people on the dev team who really like those two characters, and they're close to the SC1 timeline).
 
AMillionHP said:
That imo puts the season 2 list at Yun, Sets, Hilde, Rock, Algol, Guest. That example i gave is just following the Tekken Season formula. Of course we may not get that many characters and they may have more guests next season or maybe none.
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It would be great to have the first 4 in that list back in the game. Algol, good but meh imo. I'd happily trade him for another newcomer/guest. Yun is ok, Hwang would've made more sense story-wise, but a dao user us a dao user and I'll leave it there... Hilde is unique. Of course she HAS to be in the roster; not only she's our only heavy-armored lady, but also has a technical play-style that few other chars can match. And she wasn't even my main!
And Rock, I'd love too see him back in his SC costume, although perhaps with a different weapon AND style. Since Astha took all his moves very early on the franchise, why not give him something new, different, and make him appealing? Maybe just once, why not make him "not-trash-tier"?
As I said, if those were for S2, I'd buy it right now. But for now, just x-mas wishes =)
 
Sectus said:
I don't think Cassandra and Amy are necessarily proof that they're blindly following the Facebook list. It definitely matches up with it, but they were also characters who returned in Lost Swords. I'm thinking it was a combination of factors (popular characters, maybe there are people on the dev team who really like those two characters, and they're close to the SC1 timeline).
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Lost Swords definitely seems like a factor to me. Cass & Amy are the only two non-SCV characters from that game not yet added to VI. I feel like they touched up their assets for LS, which makes it easier to transition them into VI than say Yun or Setsuka.

(There's also the fact they made it into LS in the first place)
 
AMillionHP said:
Cassandra and Amy being selected for Season 1 does heavily imply that popularity poll is what they are prioritizing for DLC characters.

Cassandra - 339
Amy - 311
Yun-seong - 295
Setsuka - 214
Viola - 201
Hwang - 193
Hilde - 154
Z.W.E.I. - 113
Lizardman - 76
Rock - 71
Li Long - 65
Algol - 59
Dampierre - 54

I went ahead and removed all characters already on the roster, anyone from SC5 that isnt Zwei or Viola for obvious reasons and anyone below Dampierre seems negligible.

The poll suggests Yun will be next in line and i do think they will skip over Hwang. However, i dont believe they will prioritize popularity to such a degree that would allow Zwei and Viola to make the roster. That is too much a timeskip and i feel that is a line they will not cross, even if there is some demand for them.

I'll stick by my belief that Hwang is not making it and i'll also throw Li-Long into that boat as well for a similar reason.

I also think Lizardman will not be bothered with. I understand he has fans but it really feels like selectable Lizardmen on CAS definitely sours him as a character and i think PS will feel the same.

That imo puts the season 2 list at Yun, Sets, Hilde, Rock, Algol, Guest. That example i gave is just following the Tekken Season formula. Of course we may not get that many characters and they may have more guests next season or maybe none.
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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.​
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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
 
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