I’m going to be completely honest – when Killer Instinct was first shown off I hated how the game looked. I didn’t like the direction it was going at first (I thought it didn’t look enough like the original game, like designs weren’t sticking with me), and I hated the idea of a fighting game being free-to-play. I thought it was just going to be a cash-grab. I also thought the game was going to sell/review poorly and was going to be irrelevant just after a year or so.
When the game finally released I was surprised to see that a lot of people were saying the game was good. Maybe I was wrong? Or maybe I was right, but people were just getting a good reaction first – but could change? I decided to give the game a chance, so I started looking into it more and stopped telling myself it was going to be bad. I gave it non-biased chance.
What do you know, after giving it a chance I realized what the game was trying to be. A fun, very accessible fighting game with simple but deep mechanics. The character designs started to grow on me and so did the soundtrack. Before I knew it, I was keeping up with everything KI-related. I was reading the news, discussions, reading how to play the game, I was listening to the entire soundtrack, I started reading about the story, was watching tons of videos & streams… I would know when a character’s release date was announce, I would know when a rumor dropped. I already knew the basics of how the play the game. I even looked into pricing and extras. How much did characters cost? How much were the bundles? What was included? I found that the pricing was actually pretty fair. 1 character for $5, or 8 characters for $20. All characters plus bonuses (KI classic, more costumes, etc) for $40. Stages could be unlocked for free, and if you didn’t buy any characters you would get a free character to play as (who you could play as would rotate). Not bad at all – especially for a free-to-play fighting game. I would be willing to buy into it.
So what stopped me? Simple: I didn’t own an Xbox One. I already had a PS4, and there was no way I was going to buy another $400 - $500 console just for one game. Not to mention I would have to spend $60 for Xbox Live Gold every year, and I was already paying $50 a year for PlayStation Plus. No way I was going to drop that much money for one game. I wanted to play it, in-fact, I wanted to play it very, VERY badly. But I just couldn’t… But that didn’t stop be from being so interested in Killer Instinct. I’ve still been doing the exact same thing as before – Completely keeping up with the game. Now, I know the entire combo system (what does/doesn’t work in a combo and how to combo). I know all the news that has dropped, any hints or rumors that has popped up. I’m a huge fan of this game and I haven’t even played it.
And I would actually like to spend a minute talking about how amazing this is. KI is so fun to watch that it literally has fans who haven’t even played it yet. Rather it’s just someone who just like to watch people stream the game, or people like me who are practically giant fans already. I know some people probably think that’s dumb, but I’m glad to be a fan even if I can’t play it.
Anyway, at E3 this year, news of a PC version of KI coming out dropped. Like all of you already know by now, it will be for Windows 10, have cross-play and cross-buy support. The community will be bigger, the amount of people you can play with online will be bigger, etc. I have a PC (and it has great specs) so I will finally be able to play Killer Instinct! I’m so excited that I will finally be able to play and be apart of the community that actually HAS the game and experience with it. To make things better is of course Season 3. When I get the game, there will still be stuff that will be coming out post-launch which will give me that same feel of being excited for something new to drop. Even with this giant post, I cannot explain how happy and excited I am to see KI for PC finally happen. To see the game get a Season 3. To see the community grow. To know that more people will be online than ever before.
It’s also good to see that interest from those who haven’t got the game is still strong.