Honestly after this playing this game for about 4 years, I can’t imagine finding heavy violence very fitting. Watching these characters get impaled on spikes or have their throat slit on-screen would probably feel too much like MK to me.
I’m not exactly opposed to it, but I’d have to see it to be sold on it. I’m fine with the emphasis on poppy, stylish animations with a bit of blood and non-graphic executions (akin to a PG-13 superhero movie or comic book) that we have now.
Halfway? Describe to me the 50% of game content that’s missing from this game. Yes, a few ultimates could be added and some stuff could be fixed here and there, but that combined amounts to about 2%. If that. Where’s the other 48%? Obviously I’m not being literal with the 48%, but if you’re telling me that half of the game isn’t done or doesn’t exist, can you elaborate a little more?
Well, games still exist when sequels come out. Tekken 3 is still an amazing game even though Tekken 7 exists. So you can play and enjoy this game for another 15 years or 50 years if you’d like and I’m sure I’d like to as well. But that fact alone doesn’t make a sequel unnecessary. I’d like a new game with new stages, new characters, a new story and some new gameplay mechanics and modes. None of that takes away from how much I like and enjoy this game though.
Microsoft doesn’t own Iron Galaxy. I even asked Dave Lang on Twitter if he could see IG becoming part of the MS family at some point and he told me point blank that IG is going to remain independent for now. So there’s no studio to maintain KI 2013. IG stopped working on this game a year and a half ago. There are some great people that still work on upkeep though, and for that, I sincerely thank them.
If they do decide to make a new KI, they’ll either contract with IG again, they’ll get one of their new studios to work on it, or they’ll contract with a new studio. Hopefully one of those things happens! 
It’s not “falling for that shiny new stuff” to want a sequel to a game that you enjoy. Game sequels grow and evolve core elements and make for new, and sometimes even better experiences. Where would we be if Shiguru Miyamoto decided to stop with Super Mario 1 because it was a great game that didn’t need sequels? Imagine how many great games we wouldn’t have if all devs just stopped at their first effort. No Assassins Creed Odyssey, no Red Dead 2, no Mortal Kombat X… We wouldn’t even have this game if Rare and then MS decided that the original KI was it. So I’m not really sure I understand that mentality.
This game still exists and it’s still fun to play, but I’m at 106%. I have nothing else to unlock in the entire game. I still love playing it here and there, but I also want a new experience with these characters, this gameplay, this story and this world. I don’t get why that would be a foreign concept in any genre, much less fighting games.
I like him too, but based on the comic, I’m not sure how possible that would be. I put a way to rewrite him in to the story as a “new” character above, so I’m sure it could be done. I liked him too.
I think back in the 90’s there were token women in fighters and a lot of time (okay a VAST majority of the time), they were used primarily as sex appeal. I think some fighting games are finally starting to come out of that a bit and I think KI’s one of them. I don’t think she’s just the T&A anymore, nor should she be.
To me, she’s Jago’s sister, she has a history with her dad, a power she doesn’t overly understand, and she’s the leader of an underground resistance. I think there’s a lot to her background that can be explored, and I think she can be pretty compelling all around. I do agree that a lot of the women that came after her in the game are more interesting in certain respects, especially in terms of moves (just my opinion), but I think that’s something that can be evolved in the next game.
LOL too true, for sure! Yeah, I wouldn’t mind instinct being changed out for something else, though I’m not sure what that would be. I just like the idea of two instincts, where one has passive buffs and lasts longer and one is more outwardly offense and showy and what not, but doesn’t last as long. I think some characters in this game, while having useful instincts, kinda pulled the short straws when compared to other characters that got some really cool stuff they could use. Maybe this way, everyone gets some cool stuff and everyone gets some fun buffs?
But yeah, I’m not married to that idea by any means. I’d love to see what else they could come up with.
Wow, I didn’t even know that. I figured they just used largely blacked out areas and more or less went off-screen. No kidding…
What type of customization would you like to see? Just curious.
I think it’d be cool to have a retro stage pack as a preorder bonus or a higher tier bonus for a more expensive version or something like that. Maybe they pick four stages and let us vote on the fifth one? Definitely want to see Spinal’s from the original KI, Sabrewulf’s from the original KI, Kim Wu’s, Tusk’s and Gargos.
Not sure how feasible that would be, but even if it were only one or two stages, it’d still be cool to have and I know I’d spend a little extra or preorder for them!
I would put that with the caveat that I don’t really need to see the same guests again, but yeah, it’d certainly be nice to get all of the other characters in somehow.
Yeah, and I think that last part there is key. MK is the big purveyor of over the top violence. That’s kinda their shtick. KI may have copied that back in the day, but I don’t see any reason why KI would need to copy MK now. Let KI be it’s own thing. Sure, have it be dark, moody, dystopian and yeah, a little violent, but I don’t personally think it should be on MK’s level in this regard. I wouldn’t mind seeing them push the T rating a lot harder, if possible (and who knows, maybe it’s not), but I don’t personally need it to be MA.
Yeah I’m fine with that too. For me, KI has always been at it’s best when it’s showing off it’s style. It’s got the booming announcer, the awesome music, the long combos, the lightning fast gameplay, the exploding particle effects… To me, that’s the “soul” of this game, if such a thing can realistically be quantified.
I would like to see them add a bit more style in terms of the pre-match loading screen, the victory pose screen etc like they had in the original KI, where the characters were by themselves, doing something or posing or whatever. I think that those could be updated in some really cool ways to really show off who the characters are and also add some more style.
Welp you can change the color of some of the costumes. More accessories ect.
I could just add in retro stages overtime if necessary,
I’d probabley leave out guests as a whole. I beleive a fighting game franchise shouldn’t have to sell out their identity. Not to mention it’d be sad for someone to call KI “that game with Rash in it” I’d like KI to be remembered when someone asks about one of the KI casts say thing slike “That raptor” or “Ninja with a sword” ect.
But guest characters are awesome
Fighting games would get too dependent on them though. Before you know it that’s all people will remember that particular game for.
We’ve beaten this topic to death on these forums, especially me. There is no point in trying to market this game as exclusive to Xbox again, it’s a fighting game…they tried it already and it didn’t work. MS has been buying a ton of studios to make first party games, so from my POV they can afford to give up a single IP and make it multi-platform especially if the numbers can be a lot higher in terms of sales. Call me crazy but that’s what I believe.
Well I added this because it follows the idea it would be a multi-platform game, but they could still offer bonuses for playing the Xbox version like special costumes or even an additional stage or something. Obviously they couldn’t limit characters because of tournaments but it would be nice.
Killer Instinct was an amazing tournament game but it suffered from lack of entrants for blatantly known reasons. Now that the game would be multi-platform adding a huge pot bonus to tournaments would incentivise it even more and make the game worth entering.
Microsoft needs to show they are willing to support the game. We had community funds previously which is fine, but if that’s the route they want to take they have to do more of then and more often. Make special costume packs or stages to sell and some of those funds would go to tournaments. I still fail to understand why this wasn’t done more for KI2013.
I did an entire podcast about this topic and to be clear I don’t want KI to be ultra gory like MK. I want the game to be rated M to lift any and all restrictions they wanted to have creatively. Seeing Mira’s blood for example be grey instead of red or some of the Ultimates cut off screen because they can’t show what’s happening was saddening. Also the original arcade versions of the game were rated M as well, I don’t see the problem is taking KI back to how it started which is a bunch of funny trope characters with no limits.
I want a new KI game to be done right, I don’t want corners to be cut and make a bunch of the same mistakes that happened with KI2013. If Microsoft and whatever team that helps don’t feel like they can make the best game possible and do whats best for it then don’t bother. I don’t mean that in a bad way because obviously there are tons of fans who would love a new game but that’s just catering to the few snowflakes…we want the next KI to go somewhere and be the next mainstay like Street Fighter…the only thing that’s stopping that from happening is the companies willingness to invest in it.
…that’s not blood. KI has blood in spades already. Mira’s grey “fluid” is something that comes from her gauntlet.
It’d be kinda silly to say that Mira has been censored in the blood color department when Sabrewulf since day one can paint the whole visible floor of the stage red with a few swipes.
But the blood effects is one of those things that does become visible white noise after you’ve played KI a few months.
Only if done right, and not screwed over by the license holder (e.g. Kratos in MK9 being ruined by Sony’s nonsense). To this day I’m still surprised characters like Leatherface (in MKX) and General RAAM (in KI) still turned out as good as they did, they were characters that nobody asked for when they were confirmed. On a side note I hope Namco can make Negan in Tekken 7 good, since Akuma, Geese, and especially Noctis turned out amazing IMO.
Which is sadly the case with Soul Calibur 2, even to this day people legit say the game is worthless if you’re not playing the Gamecube version with Link in it. Honestly disgraceful, even without guests SC2 is still one of the best games in the series, if not the best.
As I said in another topic, Sony was hard on the mentality of “We want nothing to do with our competitors” and similar talks over the years, and only allowed crossplay for Fortnite/Rocket League to escape the grave they themselves dug with the account lockout incident (and even then they’re still going “You didn’t win!” to everyone). The only way KI’s being anywhere near a Playstation system is for MS to completely sever ties with it, and let some other publisher get the IP instead.
With that said, if MS did go that route, I could see Devolver Digital or THQ Nordic being good fits for KI, in the fact that they wouldn’t let it die like other big publishers these days (like how EA had System Shock and did nothing with it for over a decade).
I agree, going M-rated is the only way they can ideally do that, but even then it should only be on the level of KI1’s violence (technically the most violent game in the series). Having a T rating for this game pretty much forced them to water it down like KI2, though unlike KI2’s “fall over and die” mentality for most of it’s terrible finishers they at least got some decent looking animations for this game, I’ll give it that at least.
Also the old games were rated T on their Nintendo home releases with the violence mostly intact (some stuff was removed since consoles couldn’t render all of it back then), just a sign of the times I guess.
Well the concept art for Mira shows blood on her gauntlets instead of liquid metal, which implies she was probably gonna be like Jedah in the old Darkstalkers games. Personally I don’t care either way, but I can see where he was getting at in regards to toning down certain aspects of the game for the T rating.
Also I agree that the blood becomes almost invisible when you stop focusing on it (which is not hard because of the MvC-levels of particle effects). Hopefully a new game would balance that better.
That’s likley why SC-2 is looked at as the best game in the series too.
I’m kind of glad Mira’s attacks aren’t blood red. It would blend in a bit too much with current blood and would just be harder to see. The silver gray is much more visible.
This may actually be why it is silver. 
I agree that it’s a dead horse, but still… How do we know it didn’t work? It was a smaller budget sequel to a game that hasn’t been relevant for 20 years and it was released piecemeal, with the first piece coming at launch. What are the metrics for success at MS and how do you know they failed to reach their goals?
I mean, it’s not like you can go off of turnout at tournaments. That’s a miniscule portion of players actually buying and playing the game. Less than 1%, I’d wager. Plus there are other mitigating factors. The FGC isn’t overly welcoming to new games, especially by western developers. This particular game was always going to have an uphill battle regardless of which system(s) it was released on. Do you honestly think it would’ve been a much easier hill to climb if the game were also on PS4? I mean, what does that translate to? Some more people at tourneys? A small bump in sales? Is it really worth losing an incentive to join Xbox’s ecosystem?
Well, we don’t know what the sales were and we don’t know what the impact of the sales would be versus the cost of porting it to Sony’s system. As far as them being able to afford to give up an IP, again, why would they willingly lose an incentive to get people to buy their hardware (the first party’s number one goal) and to be in and spend in their ecosystem (the second goal)?
You really think sales on a competing system would mitigate those lost factors? It’s not like we’re talking about Minecraft here.
So in addition to losing potential revenue in the form of lost console sales and lost ecosystem ongoing sales, you want them to compound those losses by adding bigger pots… I mean sure, maybe people watch the game at EVO and decide to buy it on PS4 or whatever. That’s certainly possible. But will luring in the curious buyers on both consoles offset the amount spent? Who knows.
Agreed. I tend to wonder that myself. I assume that if it were possible, it would’ve been done, but who knows. It certainly seems like a good idea to me.
Fair enough. I can respect that. I don’t think that’s really the direction MS wants to go with this game, but I get what you’re saying. I don’t think we need to go back to old KI just because it was old KI. I mean, things grow and change and evolve over time. Assassins Creed Odyssey versus the original Assassins Creed, for example. Tons of differences. Mortal Kombat versus Mortal Kombat X. Same deal. It’s not like NRS should be stuck using digitized graphics just because that’s what they did in the old games, but going back to a 2D plane made a lot of sense and I’m glad they did that.
So yeah, some things seem like natural fits, while some things seem more likely lost to previous generations as things grow, change and evolve. I think some people are okay with all of this, some are okay with certain aspects, and some decided fairly early on that this wasn’t what they wanted out of KI and that’s fine too.
I just want a game that’s dark, foreboding and dystopian, with a serious and complex / compelling story to tell and yeah, I think there should be some violence. I’m with you on the interpretive ultimates. Some of them are great, and some of them maybe leave a little too much up to the imagination.
Maybe they could’ve pushed the T rating further? Who knows. Though I also agree that I don’t want KI to just be an MK clone, with organs exposed and all that stuff. It’s honestly one of my least favorite parts of MK and it’s kinda become jarring now; having this serious story with characters that behave in somewhat realistic ways and then oh hey, there are their organs and D’vorah is vomiting maggots in to Mileena’s mouth. Cool? lol
Gotcha. Do it right or don’t do it at all. I hear ya. I love the way KI 2013 ultimately turned out, even on a budget, so if they had to do a sequel on a budget, I’d be all for it and I’d hope that they learned from their unique experience making this game. Maybe that might help them avoid some of the pitfalls.
But yeah, in an ideal world, MS would see the potential in this franchise based on just how awesome and how unique this current game is and decide to really make it part of their elite family along with Halo, Gears and Forza. I honestly believe in the quality of the gameplay experience so much that I think it deserves to be up there, and I’d hope that the good will they gained throughout the life cycle of this game would propel the series on to future success if MS invested a bit more.
I would like a season 4. I don’t know what would be the meaning of resetting the game. Would it be for better graphics? I don’t think the graphics are bad right now and i do not believe that they would be so much better if there was a new game. Would it be for diffenent gameplay? I think that if the developers wanted to expand the gameplay, this could happen in this game.
I think that a reset would kill KI. You do not have to create a new game when people are still playing the existing one. There are about 500 killers now playing in ranked, one and a half year after eagle was out. People are still learning this game.
There are things in this game that could take so much expansion like SL. Resetting SL for what?
This game can be a great base for another 3 seasons of expansion. New moves, stages, characters. I think a sequel would only reduce the game. Less characters, stages, options for no reason.
While you guys are going back and forth about a Season 4 or a new Killer Instinct sequel, I’m over here waiting for this year’s KI Q&A like:
@KRAKENJIMMY @snickerdoodle @TempusChaoti
-Zenek
PS. I’m on Team Season 4; there’s no reason not to expand upon the awesome foundation that we already have, we just got the latest patch in AUGUST, Shadow Lords has a galaxy of potential to expand the KI universe, and don’t any of you act like you’d be disappointed if Xbox announced that we’re getting another 8 or 9 fighters in 2019! Give me Sharkman, please! 
To an extent, yes, they could Minecraft the crap out the current iteration of KI to where it’s base form is virtually unrecognizable, but therein lies the problem. It would still have it’s engine base to deal with. There are several technical limitations that have had to be worked around that could be vastly improved with a reset. For example all stages could be built with Ultimates in mind instead of just boss Shago’s on the shadow temple eliminating the need for the black curtain. Also stages could have better effects…perhaps they could be built within a full 360 degree map instead of a diorama that only allows for limited dynamic movement. I believe MS has said that due to the way they were built accessories were hard to work more into the game…just lots of little quality of life adjustments that could be accounted for from day 1 so they don’t have to come up with insane workarounds later down the line.
You know, before I was a member of this site I was a member of a Transformers fan site for a long time, and if you know anything about Transformers every year or 2 they do a complete overhaul of the whole thing with only a couple of exceptions. When the first live action movie came out everyone was losing their sh*t because Bay changed all of their classic designs to the point that they were nearly Transformers in name only. A lot of fans, myself included, really just wanted live action version of their classic 80’s designs. But there were a lot of people that kept saying this one thing that was a hard pill to swallow but it was very true: Having a new iteration of something doesn’t cause the previous to cease to exist. Having 4 or 5 bad live action TF movies doesn’t make my dvd collection of the original cartoon series disappear from my shelf, and a sequel to KI2013 won’t make it disappear either. If they make a sequel, you can always come back and play KI2013 anytime, same as you can SF3, MK5, Tekken 2, etc. Hell, do Smash Melee players keep the fact that it is nearly 3 games old and pre-internet from playing the crap out of it?
Anyway, just some food for thought.
Well, sure it would be for graphics, but also for the story, the addition of new characters, new moves, new mechanics, a more streamlined approach to everything, built from the ground up by the company that’s working on the game.
I agree that a lot of the expansion we’re talking about could happen in this game, but also keep in mind that this is a 5 year old game now. Sure, there are some games that hold their audience for five years or much more, but those are really few and far between, especially in the FGC. Smash Melee is really the only one that holds a substantial player base far after release that I can think of.
Plus, this game was very well received by a relatively small number of people. Now that the name is out there again and there’s likely some good buzz about it, why not let IG or a new company work on a brand new game that can generate new hype among people that already respect the IP’s newfound (or re-found) reputation and try and make something even bigger and better rather than forcing that company in to the confines of iterating on a 5 year old game whose player base has already fallen off considerably by logical attrition?
Yes it’s a deep game and some people are still playing and learning, but you say 500 as if that’s a large number. At one point there were five million people that had either played or downloaded the game or whatever it was they announced a few years back. I’m not saying “the game is dead,” or anything like that. Games don’t die and we can all play them at our leisure whenever we want.
But you’re talking about bringing people back to a 5 year old game. Sure, adding some moves, adding some characters, adding some story stuff is all well and good, but if you’re adding it to a game whose player base has shrunken considerably because it’s been out for so long and newer and shinier things have come out since, do you really think that’s a monetary investment that would pay off for MS? It’s possible, but I don’t know if it seems overly likely.
As for a reset killing KI, do you mean this particular game or the franchise as a whole? If it’s KI 2013 you’re talking about, I think people that enjoy the game will play it regardless if they want. But if you’re talking about KI as a whole, I’m kinda confused by that logic. Assuming the sequel is actually good, and I have no reason to think it wouldn’t be, then why is making something that’s newer, bigger and better a threat to the franchise?
You’re assuming that they’d do a seasonal model again. There’s no guarantee of that. For all we know, a sequel could start off with a base roster of 30 characters and give us another ten via DLC. We simply don’t know.
As for resetting SL, who’s to say they wouldn’t want to start a new story? I mean, spoiler alert, but Gargos died in the comics. How do you expand upon a mode when the mode’s final boss is dead? Sure, you can rework that, add a new boss, add more missions, etc.
But personally, I think that Shadow Lords, what they have here, was a great first design and I’m willing to bet that they learned a lot that could be put in to improving a new version of the mode. How would they change it? I’m not entirely sure. But that’s kinda the point of sequels. You have the freedom to iterate and improve upon what you did well before, lose some of the stuff that either didn’t work as well before, and add new elements and ideas.
While I agree that you can do a lot of that stuff within the construct of KI 2013, I get the feeling it’d be a lot easier to do that without being restricted to working on a 5 year old game using an engine you didn’t create and to simply build it all up again from scratch, making the game that you want to make.
So to me, that’s a good enough reason. You want to build something that’s new and fresh from the ground up, something that’s familiar and welcoming to returning players, but has enough exciting elements and ideas to give them plenty of incentive to dive in. You want to build upon the reputation KI 2013 created for itself, but you don’t want to be hamstrung by having to work within its confines anymore.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be disappointed, I’d be happy to have more fighters in this game. The thing is though, we haven’t received anything new in the way of characters or modes or anything like that since what, early 2017? Why go back and expand on a five year old game two years later when you can just put out a sequel with better graphics, some new mechanics, ideas, characters, etc? The fanbase has already dwindled for this game and while I know a lot of people enjoyed it, let me ask you honestly:
Which is more likely to draw in both new and returning fans five years after a game’s initial launch and two years after content ceased… A shiny new sequel, or adding more stuff to a game that a lot of people picked up, played, enjoyed for varying amounts of time, and then put down?
I’m not saying that no one would come back to it, and had they kept steadily iterating on the game, adding to shadowlords, adding characters, adding backgrounds, adding skins, etc… Then yeah, I think more people might’ve hung around longer, but asking people that moved on to new games years ago to come back because you put some new characters in an old game… I dunno, doesn’t that seem like a harder sell to you than simply giving them something entirely brand new to look forward to and get their hands on?
Those are lots of good points.
I think the technical limitations of this current build could be more easily overcame with a new build, rather than trying to wring more life out of something that came out five years ago. Some studios can get away with this if their IPs draw a metric ton of fans, but I’m not sure that a niche game in a niche genre is really on that list.
Also, and I can’t stress this enough, but it really bears repeating that a KI 2013 sequel does not somehow negate the existence of KI 2013. I’m not sure why people are so put off by the idea of a sequel. If you don’t like the new game, you still have the game that you do like. It’s not going anywhere. If you’re worried about the fanbase dwindling for KI 2013 if a sequel comes out, then let’s be real here… The fanbase has already dwindled on this game. Look at this site, for example. There’s a fraction of the people on here that there once was.
That’s fine though. That’s okay. Attrition happens. You play something for a long time, eventually you move on. I haven’t played this game nearly as much as I used to. That doesn’t mean I’ll never play it again. I still love sitting down with my crappy Sadira and doing some bounties in Shadow Lab.
But if you want the KI brand to remain relevant and to thrive as a franchise, I think it needs a bit more after two years of being complete then some more characters. I think you build on the reputation of this game and you build a new game from the ground up with your own vision in mind of what you want the game to be. What you liked from the last game and what you want to improve on along with new ideas.
Now, if they made a sequel, there’s no guarantee we’ll all like it. Maybe some of us decide it’s not our thing. I still remember on the DH forums, some people that loved the original games playing season one and saying “yeah this isn’t for me, this isn’t what I wanted,” and that’s okay. They still have the old games, just as we’d still have the old games and KI 2013 if the new one doesn’t tickle our pickles.
So why not go for the full sequel and give people something bigger to look forward to and get hyped about instead of expanding on game that was an XB1 launch title? I keep seeing people say “why not just expand on what we already have” and I can’t help but think “why expand on that when you can build something newer, bigger and better?”
I know that a new game would bring much more audience and money but,
I think a new console makes a lot of sense for the next Killer Instinct. KI helped launch the XB1 and if rumored estimates are correct and Scarlet and PS5 are coming in Fall, 2020, that seems like a perfect development cycle. Apparently a LinkedIn profile for a person working at Square Enix revealed that he’s working on a AAA title for PS5. So my guess is that either dev kits have gone out or there are at least some devs working on some form of next gen hardware to prep games for launch in two years, which isn’t a very long time.
So no, I don’t think we’ll see a sequel on current gen. If a sequel were to be developed from the ground up aka not using the Hex Engine, it would likely take a few years. If KI development stopped in early 2017, then it would seem like a good amount of time to prep a sequel.
Would better graphics, new characters and a new story in a newly released game be better for fans, or would it be better for fans if they added some more characters to a game that’s five years old. I mean, c’mon man, you have to know that sales would be much better for a new game.
As for the players perspective, again, this game is five years old. A lot of people that played it before have moved on to other games. Sure, a season of characters and story and some stages might bring some of them back for a little while, but what then? You’re still forcing the developers to work within the previous constraints of the Hex Engine, so you’re likely to get graphics and animations that look like their first generation XB1 caliber… I guess I just don’t see how that benefit outweighs the potential of a next gen sequel.
Sure, and nostalgia’s great, but if you want a brand to continue to thrive and draw people in, then it needs to find better ways of keeping itself relevant than a five year old game and 20 year old nostalgia, don’t you think?
Take Tekken for example. People loved Tekken 3 when it came out, but if they never released another Tekken after 1999 or whatever, I mean sure, people would still be wistful about it and hopeful for a sequel some day, but it’s not like it would be relevant.
I mean hell, Twisted Metal had a great run, especially with Twisted Metal 2 and Twisted Metal: Black, but we haven’t seen that series since PS3 and it’s all but vanished in terms of relevance. I dunno, to me, you can have nostalgia and relevance and that’s more of an ideal scenario in my mind. I still love Super Mario 3 and still play it once in a blue moon, but I’m also glad that I have New Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Galaxy, etc and I enjoy those a lot.
So I don’t know if nostalgia should necessarily be a ruling factor. I mean, I’ll concede that the hype for a new KI might not be nostalgia-based nearly to the extent that the last game was, but I honestly don’t think it needs to be. I think if IG handles a next gen sequel, I think a lot of the hype can come from the fact that they made a great fighting game and fighting game fans that experienced that game and other players that heard good word of mouth might be interested in a beautiful new sequel. To me, that’s more likely than hype getting generated by some DLC characters for the current game two years after they stopped putting out content for it.
Well, I’ll say this. No fighting game since KI has grabbed me the way KI has. I love Soul Calibur and have since Soul Blade first arrived on the scene, but while I know SC VI is a great game, I’ve been slogging through Libra of Souls and the fights just don’t reel me in the way KI’s frenetic matches do. Of course, having said that, SC VI is still a beautiful game and it’s still fun.
I have to ask though, given that KI isn’t Soul Calibur or Dragonball FighterZ or any other game that’s come out since KI first launched, what’s to say that a KI sequel can’t be as good as KI 2013? I’m kinda curious about that logic. I mean sure, they made a great game, but there were flaws here and there.
Some tended to dislike some of the animations, some disliked the season one retros, some didn’t enjoy the purple shadows, some didn’t like certain characters, some feel the Hex engine limited the quality of ultimates and some are still made ultimates weren’t done for everyone. Some feel the select screen still takes too long to load characters or move the curser around. Some feel that while Mick Gordon’s music was great, the season 3 music isn’t quite as good. Some love Mike’s voice as the KI announcer, but think the person that worked on the rest of the game made the voice work seem a little disjoined. Some loved the particle effects and some hated them. Some dislike that the dimming that took place when projectiles were thrown out being removed was a bad decision. Some thought there was a lot more to do in terms of skins, and that’s in part a limitation of the Hex Engine. Some dislike the fact that bounties you can’t collect still show up in large numbers in Shadow Lab. Some people wish there were more character slots in Shadow Lab. Some believe the story is too disjointed in KI 2013 because of the seasonal model. Some think some think some think.
Obviously you’re not going to please everyone and some of these are total nitpicks. Maybe all of them are to, well… Some people.
Point being though that there’s always room for improvement, even on great games. To me, the idea of Iron Galaxy working on a sequel with perhaps more money given the payoff on the last investment, building something with better graphics, a bold new (cohesive) narrative, their own engine that they know backwards and forwards, using animations they create and having a more ideal amount of time to get things just right, to craft more streamlined, more impressive menus and fonts, to build a ton of completely new stages, not just two or three for a new season, but twenty or more that are specifically built to allow for more dynamic camera views, that don’t require a black screen at any point, to take what works for a lot of the existing characters and tweak things and put new ideas in to them and fun new mechanics while creating awesome new characters that can do amazing things…
I dunno man, those thoughts get me a lot more hyped for playing KI than the idea of adding some characters to the current game. That would also be exciting to me and I’d welcome them and play them and what not, but I don’t know… I still think you’re going to get a lot more people a lot more hyped for KI if you’re talking about a sequel than on adding to a game they played and likely left a long time ago, and if IG or whom ever is able to build their own vision from scratch and put it out on the next console, I think it could be something even more special in many ways (nostalgia excluded) than the current game we have.
Same here, man! No problem. I love KI 2013 too and I’ll probably play it for years to come. I just want to see this series become even more of a known commodity; a household name in both Xbox’s lineup of big time franchises as well as within the FGC, who maybe don’t gravitate to new games in a lot of situations as much as one might like. KI slowly built their following over time and I’d like to see them continue to build on that in the best, most realistic ways possible and I think a big sequel on next gen has a better chance of doing that than a 4th season, but if you disagree, it’s all good!
Regardless of platform, the main thing I’m worried about for another KI is changing the developer again. KI2013 turning out the way it did, flaws and all, was nothing short of miracle. If they don’t contract Iron Galaxy and their experienced designers again for the sequel, they’re taking another big risk with the series and it may not pay off like before.
That’s true. It’s definitely something to worry about, but I’d just prefer to worry about that if and when it’s necessary. We were worried about Double Helix and that turned out great. We were worried about Iron Galaxy and I’d argue that turned out even better. If Adam Isgreen and James Goddard are involved again, I’d have every ounce of faith that they’d make sure we get something special like we got with this game. We can call it a miracle, but it was also a really good job done by really talented people on both sides. 
