We have now seen All 3 Stages coming in Season 3

[Iago407]

@FallofSeraphs76

I wonder if they can still use the left over stage from Mayas Night Guard dungeon where they kept the artifacts and Kan-ra?? Its a legit stage, they used it for trailers so it exists!

I’m not sure what stage you’re referring to. I just watched Maya’s trailer with the Kan Ra teaser and Kan Ra looked like he was in his own stage. Are you referring to someplace else?

@Rhscf

Yo, hold up. Tusk’s stage looked a lot like Spinal’s stage to me, I thought it’s a reskin, not a separate stage. That would be much better actually, 3 unique stages and a stage reskin for others. Gargos would fit well on Shago’s stage for instance, you just make it darker and more demonic. Give Spinal’s stage this viking theme and you got a decent Tusk stage (which I thought was the case). That would mean every fighter has their stage, but it wouldn’t take as much work as creating them from ground up.

Adam Isgreen confirmed that no assets from Spinal’s stage were used in making Tusk’s stage in the Tusk’s Stage thread under the character. Rukari also confirmed that they weren’t changing existing stages so that they could be used by other characters like Tiger’s Lair / Shadow Tiger’s Lair. No recolors, no different seasons, no day/night, or any type of altered stages for different characters.

@JEFFRON27

What’s so big that they bothered to not even add the other three stages? have they said anything yet? or are we gonna have to wait till March 1st?

They haven’t said yet, they’ve only confirmed that the stage relighting is not the only trade-off for for fewer stages that we’re getting. I’m right there with ya, man. VERY curious to see what they were able to do with that time and money.

@Akudesyn

Dunno, I feel like, whoever the final boss is gonna be, he deserves a proper stage. It will kill the mood to face the ultimate battle… on shago stage or whatever…

I tend to agree. I originally assumed that it’d be some chaotic, recolored Kan Ra stage with the portal open or something along those lines, but they’ve already said that stuff like this won’t happen. We’ve seen all of the stages now. If Gargos is the boss of season 3, I’m definitely not loving the fact that he’ll be appearing in Shadow Tiger’s Lair or something like that.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ll gladly shell out some extra money for redone classic stages for the community fund or for ultra pack bonuses or even as just straight up DLC. If that’s what it takes to get Gargos his own stage, then count me in.

@oTigerSpirit

I will admit that Gargos sharing Shagos/Omens stage makes it disappointing. But! I still believe they can modify a stage in someway to make it kind of “new”, maybe. Point is, I trust em’.

I hope you’re right, but the way Rukari made it sound, they’re not altering any existing stages for new characters. We’ll see, but it’d certainly be nice.

@CriticalSix4677

The burning question I have is that, for the chaps who are not getting stages, how will they be incorporated into survival mode, or the S3 story mode!?

I think that all depends on who the characters are. The devs might just decide that a character looks right in a certain stage, like if we get Mira, for example, there’s a fairly good chance she’ll have Maya’s stage.

@GreenHawk84

I am absolutely on board for another community fund for a “stage pack.” A stage for Rash and whoever else could really use one. But also a “retro remake” of at least one stage. Anyway, after thinking about MKX, KI really does have a good set of stages.

Agree 100%. I’d be willing to pony up $20 or $30 for a stage pack for the community fund. Maybe even more depending on how many stages we’re talking here. If they said “each stage is $5” and they made eight stages, I could absolutely see myself forking over $40 to the community fund. Honestly, I’d even do 4 stages at $10 a piece.

I’d personally want to see:

-“The Dungeon” -Gargos Stage (KI2)
-“Stonehenge” -Tusk Stage (KI2)
-“Desert Rooftop” -Cinder (KI)
-“Interior Castle” -Sabrewulf (KI)

If it were eight, I’d go with:

-“City Rooftop” -Orchid (KI)
-The Dojo" -"Kim Wu (KI2)
-“The Bridge” -Jago (KI2)
-“The Sky Stage” (KI Gold)

@projectboyz06

Please explain why Gargos should have his own stage when he is pulled through the portal on Kan Ra’s stage it makes more sense for him to fight on Kan Ra’s stage because for him to have his own stage everyone would have to be pulled through the portal to the Astral Plane and that wouldnt make sense

Story-wise, Gargos could have his own stage and it can be explained as simply as “upon his invasion, he took his seat of power at _______________ as his shadow minions set about wreaking havoc and blah blah blah.”

Not saying it’s overly elegant, but every character gets a stage that fits them, I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to explain why a stage for Gargos could fit him.

@FallofSeraphs76

Everyone is jumping to conclusions about Tusks stage!!! We havent even seen it in action and how it works.

Yeah, if a dev says it’s one of their all-time favorite fighting game stages, or whatever it was that he said (I know it was something along those lines), then I’m at least waiting to see the full thing in action before I start using some of the words I’ve seen to describe it thus far.

[KingOnimaru]

Only 3 stages is super dissapointing but as long as we get a lot of characters I can live with it.

[FallofSeraphs76]

It has nothing to do with Kanra’s teaser or Mayas trailer…but Mayas stage has steps and a doorway to the left…that leads down to the basement and storage area.

It’s used in the cut scenes of her story mode.

That was supposed to be here stage…its were she gets the daggers. Max talks about it on his videos when he is going through the S2 story mode with Maya

Search around and you will find some talk on it

[Iago407]

@FallofSeraphs76

It has nothing to do with Kanra’s teaser or Mayas trailer…but Mayas stage as steps and a doorway to the left…that leads down to the basement and storage area.

Its used int eh cut scenes of her story mode.

That was supposed to be here stage…its were she gets the daggers. Max talks about it on his videos when he is going through the S2 story mode with Maya

Search around and you will find some talk on it

Ah, okay! Thanks. I think I remember Max saying something about that at some point, but I’m not positive. I’ll take a look around for it. Thanks for clarifying, man! I honestly had no idea what you were talking about lol.

[R1stormrider]

people are saying that we’re only getting 3 stages. i am going to assume at launch only 3 stages will be had. im sure the new incoming original fighters will have their own arenas? the new composers need levels to put music into, they cant really be signed on just to do 3 different songs lol. i am confused! lol

[xSkeletalx]

Without starting the huge debate all over again, I suggest you skim through the “Season 3 Lighting” thread. There’s been a lot of discussion about it but we have confirmation of the following:

Season 3 only has three new stages.

Every Season 3 character will receive their own music, and there will be some way (to be revealed later) to allow music to be heard for characters who don’t have stages.

@rukizzel

Ignoring the assumptions on characters for now, but yes 3 stages total.

[Draigh]

The dev’s have confirmed like 20 times already, ONLY 3 stages in season 3.
But theme music for everyone, no one’s sure how that will work yet, probably stage sharing or something…

They did say however fromnow on it will be smooth sailing, no more unexpected bomb drops on us.

So we are only expecting cool things now

[R1stormrider]

thanks guys, just read up on it. i dont want to fan the flames so ill just say i appreciate the clarification!

[Infilament]

I think this “mystery mechanism” for hearing the music is pretty easy to deduce: they’ll have an option in the menu for you to hear the themes of one of the characters in the battle, or the stage music itself.

So yes, you’ll be able to hear Maya’s theme while playing on Fulgore’s stage, but you can probably force Fulgore’s theme on Fulgore’s stage all the time via a menu option, no matter who is fighting, if you like it that way.

Like… there’s no other way to do it. It’s super logical, easy to implement, and makes a lot of sense. It’s also common in lots of other fighting games for themes to be interchangeable like this (SF4 and SF5 both can do this).

I’ll say that if they do it another way that is less flexible than this, I’ll be pretty disappointed. In “Sound Options”, they should literally just implement “Stage Music” with the following options: “Always P1”, “Always P2”, “Either P1 or P2”, “Stage”. So you can force your theme all the time (P1), your opponent’s theme all the time (P2), one of them at random, or force the theme that belongs to the character who owns the stage.

[mnieves1926]

I would totally put money in a community fund to get stages for all the characters…sign me up

[paintwaster2]

I bet there’s going to be a community fund raise for at least one or two stages at most.

[xMrReadx]

I think the easiest way to implement music swapping would be to just do it MK9 style, where you press another button instead of ‘A’ to get the alternate theme on a stage. Characters that don’t have a stage have their song assigned to the stage that suits them most.

The way SF5 does it is fine too cos ranked has character themes but lounges have stage themes so you can keep picking one character and swap stages every set so the song doesn’t get old. The way SF4 did it sucked tho, I don’t like the idea of being forced to go back into the options menu to swap it from character or stage themes.

I can almost guarantee IG won’t do it this way cos it would be harder to implement but it would be cool if character themes were interchangeable similar to how Smash Bros does it. Love that you can set the likelyhood of a song showing up. In KI’s case tho, it has less music so it would be better if you could mix and match any song to any stage. Obviously, most songs won’t suit every stage but if you can edit it to your liking it could work.

[BigBadAndy]

@CrazyLCD if they release more than 3 stages with S3 at this point, then the community will never believe anything they say ever again. I just don’t see that being a possibility.

[mkswagger]

People skip intros all the time too but they aren’t going to stop making those.

[ShinHisako]

It would be interesting to add both themes for both fighters in a stage. If the momentum starts changing or a combo break happens the theme would switch to the other characters.

[xCrimsonLegendx]

Yep, still colossally disappointed that they are the only three. A little piece of why I love KI is dead this season.

[Archon879]

What major features would you sacrifice to get those missing S3 stages?

To answer that question myself; I think those stages are the most dispensable feature. If they had to cut something, I say they made the right call.

[xCrimsonLegendx]

The last two season didn’t need to sacrifice anything to have a full set of stages, so whatever they’re adding that has made them decide to remove character stages is unnecessary in my eyes if it means axing existing parts of the game.