Soulcalibur VI DLC Discussion Thread

Looking at hilde’s backstory makes me sad because her story could be made to fit SC6. Though I hate the notion of SC4 characters being in the SC1 era, it technically could work.

Would it be a retcon to have hilde fight nightmares forces? Or is it too early? Her story involves fighting with Siegfried or absolving him of his sins. So it doesn’t really work if it’s in the SC1 era
 
Would it be a retcon to have hilde fight nightmares forces? Or is it too early? Her story involves fighting with Siegfried or absolving him of his sins. So it doesn’t really work if it’s in the SC1 era
George von Krone has already started his first attack on Nightmare, which has driven him to the madness and loss of several men, causing Hilde to be crowned at 7/9 years old. Wolfkrone is already in ruins, nothing would stop seeing Hilde fighting some malfested who are still wandering around her kingdom. :sc4hil1:
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Hilde (SC IV):
With the king driven to insanity, the kingdom turned to the remaining candidate for leadership, forcing Hilde upon the throne despite her young age. By gathering allies and power, Hilde was able to resist the invading forces of the Azure Knight.
Wolfkrone (SC VI):
It is believed that the King of Wolfrone at the time fell prey to the Evil Seed and descended into madness; in a attempt to attack Nightmare head-on, he then lay seige to Ostrheinsburg Castle, losing many men in the process.
 
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That doesn’t say that Hilde literally took up the sword (and lance) and resisted the invading forces herself, but she commanded her kingdom’s troops and allied forces to do so. She doesn’t leave the kingdom until Algol comes forth, so I don’t think she would join the battle before SoulCalibur VII.
 
I think if there's a Season 3, it's likely they will add a new character, especially if they have to start digging into the lower dredges of popularity.
 
A new character is only likely if they cannot get a guest to headline the season pass. The effort spent on a brand new character and a guest character is about the same.
Or if anything, slightly lessened in the case of the guest character, since they do not need to devlope the moveset, model, or general design from the ground-up, but rather start with a bit of a template in the form of the game or other piece of media the character comes from. Of course, that's if we're speaking strictly in terms of development team manpower: obviously licensing a character requires lawyer work-hours, which do not come cheap--but that's just one more reason why guests always require a certain threshold of unit-moving, mass-market appeal: they have to be worth the trouble.

Anyway, I agree a new character is much less probable than a guest. Just as I predicted parity between the 1st and 2nd season passes almost a year ago, I predict parity again between those first two seasons and the third: there will probably be three classic era characters, plus a guest to anchor sales on and draw in new players, and a roughly equal amount of CaS and secondary content. This is the simplest way to market your content, especially if you are in the middle of trying to sell your consumer base on continuing support release models, a strategy Namco are clearly doubling down on now: you want to five your consumer a roughly equivalent amount and value of content. It also allows the company (that is, the publishing parent company in this case) to projects rough costs and revenues.

Four slots would allow them to do with the third season what they did with the first and apparently the second: three classic era characters and a guest. Indeed, three extra classic slots would allow them to fill out the entirety of the classic era playable main rosters, plus have that important guest to help namco feel confident the third season will not fall off too much in sales compared to the first two. I could also see them maybe doing Hilde in place of a fourth guest. I think it's not super likely, but I do think it's a real possibility. Still, if I were a betting man (actually, I am a betting man, but not on the stakes I could drum up for this bet!), I would say by far the most likely outcome for the remaining content will be:
Season 2: Hwang, Haohmaru, Setsuka, Rock, and​
Season 3: Guest #4 (/outside chance Hilde), Lizardman/Aeon, Li Long, and Yun-seong.​
For obvious reasons, I am a little more confident with regard to Season 2 than Season 3, but if I had to make a guess, those would be my projections for the remaining continuing support on the game: and yes, I do think a third season is more probable than not.

That doesn’t say that Hilde literally took up the sword (and lance) and resisted the invading forces herself, but she commanded her kingdom’s troops and allied forces to do so. She doesn’t leave the kingdom until Algol comes forth, so I don’t think she would join the battle before SoulCalibur VII.
On the other hand, other characters have entered into the forefront of the retold narrative as playable characters earlier than they did in the original telling: Tira, Amy, Zasalamel. It's just while those characters all originated as playable entities in SCIII, whereas Hilde came in SCIV. Is that a distinction significant enough that the devs are truly unlikely to introduce Hilde in SCVI? It's pretty hard to judge on current evidence. I would say I lean slightly on the side of assuming she will not appear in Season 3 and that the next we will see of her is SCVII. But I go back and forth on it. It's currently the closest call of all the legacy characters, imo: when I look at any of the remaining main roster characters of previous games, I mostly feel like I can sort them easily into "more likely than not" and "likely not", and Hilde is really the only character who hovers near the middle. I do think she is drastically more likely than a new original character as DLC (though also less likely than a fourth guest).
 
On the other hand, other characters have entered into the forefront of the retold narrative as playable characters earlier than they did in the original telling: Tira, Amy, Zasalamel. It's just while those characters all originated as playable entities in SCIII, whereas Hilde came in SCIV. Is that a distinction significant enough that the devs are truly unlikely to introduce Hilde in SCVI? It's pretty hard to judge on current evidence. I would say I lean slightly on the side of assuming she will not appear in Season 3 and that the next we will see of her is SCVII. But I go back and forth on it. It's currently the closest call of all the legacy characters, imo: when I look at any of the remaining main roster characters of previous games, I mostly feel like I can sort them easily into "more likely than not" and "likely not", and Hilde is really the only character who hovers near the middle. I do think she is drastically more likely than a new original character as DLC (though also less likely than a fourth guest).
I don't think it has to do with which game they were first playable in, but their backstory/history. SoulCalibur III folks do have the fortune of their backstory being rooted in SoulCalibur II, for the most part, but that's by happenstance rather than being a mandatory thing. Like Zasalamel dates back to the ancient times, for example, so he isn't related to SoulCalibur II, but Amy certainly is, and Tira is... well, Tira, but her history still originates back with the Evil Seed, and she was capable even as far back then. Algol does have his reason for existence rooted in SoulCalibur III (Zasalamel's tomfoolery with the swords unleashing untold power), but Hilde does not, because her introduction is tied to the new threat that Algol presents, since she felt it was no longer good enough to just sit the throne and let her forces and her allies handle the mess, since the risen Hero King was a force that wasn't yet encountered. While Tira was an orphan and had no choice but to fight in order to survive, Hilde is not in the same situation, being descended from royalty. She learned to fight as a privilege, in what could be defined as more of a ceremonial role, since she didn't have to fight, since she had a kingdom to fight for her.

So, what I'm saying is, more or less, it's not impossible that we would see Hilde in season three, I agree with what you're saying, but it's not impossible that she would, either, her chances are just lower than everyone else. Lower than Rock, Aeon, Yun-seong, and even Li Long. That's not a good footing to be standing on, so I don't see a big hope in seeing her return. She would be the stand-in for the lack of a fourth guest, if at all, but she's not taking a spot from another series character, in all likelihood.
 
In this era, at this stage of history, they do. Especially Hwang.

So I’m feeling like the safe choice will be hilde setsuka Yun for season 2.

But I just noticed something. They clearly still have access to movelists/animations from the ps2 era as demonstrated by fluffyquack.

But another obvious giveaway. Inferno literally has animations copied exactly from Night Terror. They straight up gave Inferno some of the same intro, combat and winning poses that night terror used back in SC3 on the ps2!

So in theory they still have access to Li Long and Hwang animations...but idk if that makes them more likely
 
So in theory they still have access to Li Long and Hwang animations

I personally wouldn't call it a theory when Soul Calibur 3 Arcade Edition has unique movesets for Hwang and Li Long (see video), practically all animations have cross over from each game because the core data is always being built on. Fluffyquack actually found Setsuka's SC3 stance in SC4 and Nightmare's SC3 stance in SC6.


Speaking of Hwang you know what be a really cool new addition is for him to have the splits as a stance. He already has signature moves that do attacks while he does the splits but to have him go into split stance by holding down 1A or 1B would be pretty sweet. If Hwang is a sure thing with season 2 hopefully the battle director has the same epiphany.
 
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I don't think it has to do with which game they were first playable in, but their backstory/history. SoulCalibur III folks do have the fortune of their backstory being rooted in SoulCalibur II, for the most part, but that's by happenstance rather than being a mandatory thing. Like Zasalamel dates back to the ancient times, for example, so he isn't related to SoulCalibur II, but Amy certainly is, and Tira is... well, Tira, but her history still originates back with the Evil Seed, and she was capable even as far back then. Algol does have his reason for existence rooted in SoulCalibur III (Zasalamel's tomfoolery with the swords unleashing untold power), but Hilde does not, because her introduction is tied to the new threat that Algol presents, since she felt it was no longer good enough to just sit the throne and let her forces and her allies handle the mess, since the risen Hero King was a force that wasn't yet encountered. While Tira was an orphan and had no choice but to fight in order to survive, Hilde is not in the same situation, being descended from royalty. She learned to fight as a privilege, in what could be defined as more of a ceremonial role, since she didn't have to fight, since she had a kingdom to fight for her.

Well that's great fanfiction stitched together from previous lore dumps and all, but I think you are missing the forest for the trees if you believe the possible omission of Hilde would have nothing to do with a kind of "1st vs. 2nd halves of the franchise" kind of compartmentalization. By any reasonable measure (number of years; number of mainline entries; even aesthetic trends) SCIII:AE represents the last game before the median point of the franchise, and Soulcalibur IV the game immediately after. It's not a guarantee of how things will play out with the remaining continuing support content, but its worth noting that everything in Season 1, and everything hinted at by what we know of Season 2 so far is consistent with this. I think the development goal of reworking everyone from the "classic era" main rosters is attainable, if they use exactly 3 Seasons, and more or less identical formats of the content between each season--and I'm increasingly convinced that is the plan here, especially now that Tekken 7's third season has been announced.

But if there is anybody left in the series stable after that who they might throw the selection scheme over the side for, it's Hilde. She's a popular character, her style is super unique, the character has become one of the noteworthy "faces" of the series, and her story would at least allow for her to show up sooner (or at least, at the end of the day, it wouldn't be that much more difficult than it was for Amy, Zas, Setsuka, or Tira, no matter how anally we analyze the finer points of text-based lore dumps from SCIII:CE and SCIV. :)

On the other hand, if she is omitted, it will definitely be because of a more general "this far into the original releases and no further" sentiment in the dev team than any particular nitpicking about those lore points. Remember that the guys writing those tedious talking head segments are at the opposite end of the totem poll of authority in that development team. I'm pretty sure, based on all available evidence, that they are actually a part of the non-PS/non-Namco outsource team. Or maybe they have and a QA supervisor who keeps them consistent on lore, who knows. What I can say with some degree of confidence is that it is unlikely the ultimate decision about who gets in to the season passes is made at that level and it certainly involves a lot more factors than whether Hilde's exact timeline matches up--esepcailly when it would be "close enough" at worst.

Honestly, I think Hilde would probably fit in pretty well in this game, and her style would be a welcome enough addition to series loyalists that I would not count her out. The thing is, including her would mean one of two things had happened: A) they got within one character of recreating the entire classic roster and then didn't go all the way, or B) They chose to include Hilde instead of a guest in Season 3. Neither of those things seems likely. So I predict Hilde's chances of inclusion at about 30-40%. In other words, I will be surprised if she is included but far from shocked. She makes sense on a lot of levels: she just doesn't fit with the pattern of DLC content in this entry so far.
 
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My most controversial opinion about Hilde is that I want Project Soul to ditch her charge up mechanic for her moves and give her proper stances instead. An interesting experiment for sure but I don't think it works in this series at all, though I'm sure some Hilde mains will highly disagree with me on this point.
 
My most controversial opinion about Hilde is that I want Project Soul to ditch her charge up mechanic for her moves and give her proper stances instead. An interesting experiment for sure but I don't think it works in this series at all, though I'm sure some Hilde mains will highly disagree with me on this point.
Not a Hilde main, but I would be okay with that change. The whole charge mechanic is why I could never get used to playing as her.

I'm curious if people who play as Hilde see that as an important pillar to her gameplay or if they'd be okay with that getting changed. If I recall, in SC4 you could kinda cheese her by mapping A to two buttons so you could charge A while doing A attacks. I can't remember if they fixed that in 5.
 
I can’t believe you guys are saying Li Long and Hwang have more of a chance than Hilde...

Hwang maybe has a little a chance than Hilde since: 1- He already appears in the game (Hilde didn't), 2- Yellow.

Li Long definitely have less chance than Hilde tho imo.
 
My most controversial opinion about Hilde is that I want Project Soul to ditch her charge up mechanic for her moves and give her proper stances instead. An interesting experiment for sure but I don't think it works in this series at all, though I'm sure some Hilde mains will highly disagree with me on this point.

Yup lets remove the mechanic that makes hilde unique. Now thats a great plan
 
Yup lets remove the mechanic that makes hilde unique

Unique doesn't automatically make something good, I actually explained that I think button charge moves don't work in Soul Calibur as it makes a character restrictive in a bad way and unfun to use. If you disagree you should explain why button charge moves are good.
 
Thats what charge characters do. Being restricted to having to hold a button is how the design works. But thats also what makes hilde stand out without that she pretty much loses her purpose and becomes the average character. Also its not like it actually restricts her especially in sc6 where you can literally break grabs with anything. Thats like saying hey lets remove meditation stance because sitting restricts yoshi from walking.
 
Hilde isn't relevant to the debate here, I'm specifically critiquing button charging moves in Soul Calibur as I don't think it works it this game at all. You've not actually stated if you think charge button moves are good or not in Soul Calibur. I mean it's like someone defending Tira's RNG stance transitions (which never happens BTW) because it's different rather than explaining what makes it good.
 
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