Soulcalibur VI publisher Bandai Namco has dropped two major announcements for the upcoming fighting game. First, players will once again be able to create and play as their own customized fighters, and second, the game’s first DLC character will be none other than the blade ring-wielding Tira.
Interestingly enough, both the Soulcalibur custom character creator and Tira first debuted way back in 2005’s Soulcalibur III. For Soulcalibur VI, the character creator has been greatly expanded, allowing players to customize not only their character’s appearance, outfit, and fighting style, but also their race. Judging from the footage shown in the below teaser trailer, it looks like that, in addition to a standard human, custom characters can also be skeletons, mummies, automatons, lizard-people, and much more.
Soulcalibur VI’s custom characters will also tie heavily into the game’s Libra of Soul mode in which players venture to different parts of the world, battle against and team up with iconic Soulcalibur faces (as well as guest character Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher series), and ultimately work to thwart the plans of a mysterious new villain who seeks to harness the power of Soul Edge for his own nefarious goals.
Along with the Libra of Soul trailer, Bandai Namco also uploaded a second trailer which confirms that Soulcalibur VI will have a season pass that grants access to new DLC fighters post-launch, and the first DLC fighter on deck will be the villainous Tira (all DLC fighters will also be available as standalone purchases). Unfortunately, fans aren’t too happy about the fact that Bandai Namco is already walling content off behind a pay-gate, especially since the core game’s roster hasn’t yet been fully revealed.
The good news is that other recently revealed Soulcalibur VI roster additions such as Voldo and Talim won’t be locked behind paid DLC. Soulcalibur VI is scheduled to launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on Oct. 19.