PlayStation's All-Stars Battle Royale

[GTAce]

Crash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!11111111111111111111111111111

[OmniStalgic]

Nothing specific but did get a reply from one of the devs at Superbot in support of them making a competitive game. only time will tell, but a good sign that they would even reply in this way I think.

You guys are fighting game fans correct? Well I should be able to get a straight answer, not PR answer, but straight. So here it is. Are you guys making this title competitive or not?

I'm a pretty big fan of SF, dabble in SC a little, and will pick up Tekken/MK soon, but as far as competitive fighters, I think it's hands down one of the best genres of all time. Fighters age gracefully through platform cycles, they are fun, challenging and everything you guys should already know, and I just wanted to know if you guys are seriously trying to apply that spirit to this new title?

I'm currently following the game but the reveal, honestly just reeked of casual play. No quarter-circle motions, no health-bar, stage affecting gameplay, etc...A good example of a competitive fighter that still manages causal play well is SF4. It holds newbs hands, but has people studying its intricacies to "master" it and face off competitively. If this game isn't going to be at EVO, I would just like to know now, so I won't get my hopes up.

But if it is, I'll be there day one, all DLC, promoting on Facebook/Twitter/SRK/E-mpire you name it...I think a competitive fighter with Sony's studios and 3rd party icons is simply too good to be true, but it'll be nice if my expectations are met for once.

Fighting games run deep, and it's a special kind of bond when you meet someone who shares the same spirit. Show us something special Super bot, you'll have one dedicated fan at least'-)

OmniStalgic
Peace...

Superbot's reply

Hi Omni,

Thank you for contacting us. We appreciate your interest and comments.

It has been our priority from the beginning to develop a game that
will satisfy hard core fight gamers, many of which we count in our
ranks. We have a deep pool of handpicked talent that is incredibly
passionate about fighting games, including some nationally ranked
competitive fight gamers.

We feel very good about the depth we have been building into the game,
as well as how fun and accessible it is. I think it's a very good sign
that our team still loves playing the game in their off time, despite
having worked hard on it for 2 years and logging a ton of play hours.

We are trying some new things too, while staying true to what we love
about great fighting games. It's cool that you are keeping an open
mind about our title, as I am confident that you will enjoy it.

Please keep posted to news about the game, as there are plenty of
reveals and good surprises in store.

Kind regards,

David

[solidsnakejej]

Nathan Drake and Bioshock's Big Daddy spotted

[Cyrus]

Seriously stupid to include Big Daddy in PLAYSTATION All Stars! Seriously, this lowered my expectations instantly. Including Big Daddy is not celebrating Playstation history in any way. Should have no place in a game like this. Only 3rd party characters that should qualify for the game are those who have contributed to Playstation history in a significant way like Crash, Cloud, Lara, Snake. Not Big Daddy.

[Otacon305]

Someone sounds a little butt-hurt. What's your beef with Big Daddy?

[Cyrus]

What's your beef with Big Daddy?

The simple fact that Big Daddy is not a significant character in Playstation history in any way.

[OmniStalgic]

The simple fact that Big Daddy is not a significant character in Playstation history in any way.

true, but if you start to get a roster 25+ and up, you can just start to put in "good idea" characters and not just Playstation branded ones. No one would object if Ryu/Ken popped up into the game.

[Otacon305]

Well let's compare to Super Smash Bros. Is Lucario a significant Nintendo character? Ike? Roy? Marth? Shit, Sonic and Snake are the primary characters other companies.

[solidsnakejej]

Vita screens

[solidsnakejej]

For fighting fans, Seth Killian has joined Sony Santa Monica to work on Playstation All-Star, I'm not a fighting fan so I have no idea who this is.

Hello PlayStation, I’m Seth Killian. A few of you may know me as a familiar face in the world of fighting games, but I’m writing today to say that I’ve joined Sony as the lead game designer for the external group at the Sony’s Santa Monica Studio.

I was excited to join Santa Monica Studio in particular because of the chance to work with some great individuals, but also because of the incredible range of projects they take on. If you head out of my office and turn right, you’ll run into the “God of War: Ascension” team. If you turn left, you’ll find the Giant Sparrow crew working on “The Unfinished Swan.” There are other amazing studios in the world, but nowhere else that I know where you can find that kind of diversity combined with such a deep commitment to greatness–which also happens to sum up what’s so exciting to me about Sony overall.

The external group works with Sony’s outside studios — teams like Queasy Games (Sound Shapes), Fun Bits Interactive (Escape Plan), thatgamecompany (Flower, Journey), and… SuperBot Entertainment, makers of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale!

Fighting games are very close to my heart, and as someone that’s spent much of my life with traditional fighters, All-Stars has been a great opportunity to take a step back and rethink fighting fundamentals from the ground up. The entire team was put together from scratch to create this game, and they are loaded with fighting game superstars (including some impressive tournament credentials–I’m not even the first EVO finalist to join the team!) who love great combat just as much as I do.

All-Stars is also a total love-letter to Sony fans. From the characters, to their special moves, to the incredible level 3 supers, and the stages themselves, I’m not sure there’s ever been such a giant dose of fan-service in Sony history. Beyond great character designs or all the ingenious little ideas that make combat feel great, the real test of a great game to me is that “just *one* more game!” feeling. If it’s 3am and you have to work the next day, but you’ve still got the urge to play again, you know you’re doing something right. You only have to walk through SuperBot’s studio and see all the staff being scolded to stop playing their own game andget back to work to know that they’ve really got something special cooking.

You don’t have to take my word for it, however–we’ll be taking All-Stars on the road and making sure you guys have plenty of opportunities to go hands-on, starting with PlayStation’s first official presence at EVO this weekend. More details soon.

For everyone that’s already reached out, thank you so much for the kind welcome into PlayStation Nation, and for everyone else, I look forward to doing my absolute best to give PlayStation fans the great games they deserve.

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/...west-employee/

[OmniStalgic]

For fighting fans, Seth Killian has joined Sony Santa Monica to work on Playstation All-Star, I'm not a fighting fan so I have no idea who this is.
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2012/...west-employee/

it's a pretty big move, Seth Killian was basically the mouth-piece (community manager/director I guess) for Capcom and voiced the company's direction for SF4, MvC3, and SFxT. He can also take some credit for the tight community and overall increase in tourney participation and streaming for this gen's kinda resurgence of the fighting game scene.

It bodes well that's he's joining the team with this game actually, it could be a good indicator that they do indeed plan to make it a competitive fighter and not just a brawl knock-off for casuals. Wish I could read the news, but I'm definitely more interesting in the game now.

[solidsnakejej]

Wish I could read the news, but I'm definitely more interesting in the game now.

Copied it in for you.

[Segitz]

Now what if we branch out a bit... I mean, it is Sony we are talking about... why not Michael Jackson (as Thriller Zombie)?

[Gribble-Grunger]

Now what if we branch out a bit... I mean, it is Sony we are talking about... why not Michael Jackson (as Thriller Zombie)?

I shudder to think what his special would be

[KRA]

Kotaku.A few questions asked via e-mail

Kotaku: You've gone from expert player to community builder to consultant to lead designer. I don't think most people would think of you as a designer. What are you bringing to the table in terms of theory and practice?

A lot of the people that know me outside of my community work side know my design side, from people internally at Capcom, to longtime friends in the industry, to people in the fighting game world, and of course the people at Sony that hired me. Theoretically, I'm very interested in assmyetric competitive design and game balance in particular, but on the practical side my number one interest has always been mechanics, like a beautiful jump mechanic, or a really crisp attack with great collision. Story, graphics, etc. are all fine, but to me so much comes down to really nailing to mechanics that feel fantastic. It's our primary experience of everything else happening on the screen, and it's hard to love games that don't feel good to play, first and foremost.

Kotaku: Describe what your new role at Sony Santa Monica will be.

I'm the lead game designer for Sony Santa Monica's external division. That's the group that's works with Sony's outside studios, which includes groups like Giant Sparrow (The Unfinished Swan), SuperBot (PlayStation All-Stars), ThatGameCompany (Journey), Queasy (Sound Shapes) and lots more. I expect the role will vary from project to project depending on the teams' strengths, but overall I'll be working with the teams on all design and creative aspects of the games in the collaboration.

Kotaku: Does the fact that you're going to be on External Development mean that you won't be giving the All-Stars team the benefit of your fighting game wisdom?

Happy to say it's just the opposite. SuperBot is an external studio working exclusively with Sony, so they're exactly the kind of team I will be working with, and PlayStation All-Stars is one of my first few projects (and All-Stars will be the first to release). The SuperBot team was created from the ground up to make this game, and they're thick with fighting game experts, including many friends I've known (or even played against competitively) for years. The overall level of combat knowledge around Santa Monica Studios was a huge draw for me—between teams like SuperBot, the God of War guys, and more, the level of fighting expertise is just insanely high, so I feel right at home.

...

[OmniStalgic]

Interest in All-Stars and SuperBot in general GROWING!!!!

Awesome updates to this thread!!! Man, I f'n love my PS3 more every year it seems! If this one turns out AAA, I really will feel spoiled. This year, we got VF5:FS, Skull Girls, DOA5 & Persona:Arena is coming next, then Tekken Tag:2. SSF4:AE is still alive and kicking a well. Now, suffice to say, many forum goers here aren't fighting game fans, but each one of these titles essentially boils down to over a 1000 hours of gameplay. I don't know if people will still be playing SF4 in 2014 but we've already been playing the same game for over 2 years already just a small update and it feels fresh again. Sega's VF series always have crazy long legs. And Tekken Tag 2 will literally be played forever, with a really strong community behind it. That means we could possibly end up playing these titles for YEARS! All-Stars is also a game that won't need updates like SF or other 2D games with balance updates, if they can get it right, It could really become a cherished exclusive for PS3 owners, and that chance is growing getting people like Seth on board.

Made my day...tks for the updates Snake & Kra...

[Segitz]

I shudder to think what his special would be

Just play Moonwalker on Mega Drive^^

[KRA]

Polygon.Capcom's former Street Fighter expert Seth Killian joins Sony Santa Monica Studio
By Michael McWhertor on July 2


Sony Computer Entertainment has made another key acquisition today: fighting game expert, Street Fighter master, and former Capcom employee Seth Killian, who is now a member of the PlayStation family at the company's Santa Monica Studio.

Killian will still be in the business of creating fighting games, as one of his first projects will be PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale, Sony and SuperBot Entertainment's crossover brawler.

His role as lead designer at Sony Santa Monica Studio's external development group will extend to more than fighting games, however. In addition to leading development on the God of War series, Sony's Santa Monica Studio also works with smaller teams like thatgamecompany, Eat Sleep Play, and Q-Games to bring their titles to PlayStation systems.

Killian tells Polygon he'll be working with multiple external teams, not just SuperBot.

"I'm happy that I get to start with a fighting game, but yes, my assignments already include other types of games as well," Killian said via e-mail. "The External group works with Sony's outside studios, like the cool kids from thatgamecompany (Flower, Journey), Giant Sparrow (The Unfinished Swan), and of course SuperBot Entertainment (PlayStation All-Stars) just to name a few. For my projects, I'll be collaborating with the teams on the design and creative side, in planning and execution."

Killian announced he was leaving Capcom in mid-June, having worked with the development teams responsible for Street Fighter 4, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Street Fighter X Tekken. Killian explained in an e-mail interview what brought him to Sony's Santa Monica Studio after six years at Capcom.

"Sony Santa Monica has a great group of talent (including senior management made up mostly of women, which is unusual and awesome), and they work on some of the most interesting projects in gaming, with a range that runs from AAA to smaller, more personal games," Killian said. "I think they're the most progressive studio of their size anywhere in the world, which gives me a chance to work directly with a lot of my industry heroes."

"The studio is also infested with smart combat designers that speak my language and make me feel like less of a weirdo, so that was pretty exciting."

The opportunity to work with "the fighting game brain trust" developing PlayStation All-Stars, Killian says, was another reason he was attracted to the Santa Monica-based developer.

"I am intensely interested in balance," Killian said, "but to do it right means taking time to try and understand not just a few characters, but the whole ecosystem of All-Stars, which takes some time. That said, the target is definitely to make it withstand and even shine under serious competitive pressure. It's a fun game that you can just mash around in with friends, but the SuperBot team includes a lot of stone-cold fighting game killers who want to build something they enjoy too, and you only have to look around the office to find them all playing for fun and smiling."

Killian says his duties won't see him working directly on another Sony Santa Monica Studio project, God of War: Ascension, despite its competitive multiplayer fighting angle.

"I will be playing as much of the multiplayer as I can manage," Killian said, "and whether I end up stealing from them, or maybe they'll find an idea from me, either way my hope is that all the games become as strong as they can be."

A longtime fighting game fan and evangelist, Killian joined Capcom in 2006 to consult and collaborate on the development of Street Fighter 4, the beginning of a revival of the then-struggling fighting game genre.

"My job at Capcom started weird and got progressively weirder," Killian explained. "I was always supported with input into the games, but I realized at one point that of all the job titles I accrued over the years (when I left I was 'Strategic Director, Community, Online, and Special Combat Advisor'), none of them even existed before they were given to me – they were making it up as they were going along, just like I was.

"Everybody was happy with what I was doing, but they also recognized that it didn't fit into the organizational structure at all. Towards the end, I was working on the fighting games as well as titles outside the fighting genre, but also still working on explicitly community side things."

Killian's new gig at Santa Monica Studio will see him focus mainly on development, not marketing.

"At Sony, the lead game designer role is very much a full time job unto itself," he says. "I'm not formally responsible for community outreach any longer (PlayStation and Santa Monica both have great teams for that), but fans have always been centrally important in my thinking and approach to pretty much everything, so those distinctions aren't very important to me. I'll talk to whoever is willing to listen, and listen to whoever has something worthwhile to tell me, whether they are other designers, smart fans, or tough critics."

His departure from Capcom, Killian says, does not necessarily signal his departure from the fighting game community, a group of dedicated fans that he considers his "extended family." After six years of focusing on Capcom's suite of fighting games, sequels and iterations delivered worryingly too frequent for some, Killian remains upbeat about the future of the genre.

"I think it's a very interesting time [for fighting games]," Killian says. "The market is crowded – not because there [are] so many fighters relative to other games, but because most fighters tend to require such a large time investment from their players. If the games are very hard to learn, but also need that time investment to shine, they have to compete with each other or even cannibalize their own player bases from previous installments. That fragments the player base across titles, and the fewer players playing any particular game mean that your skills (that investment) are less admired or valuable. That's a dangerous time for the genre, because it risks collapsing under its own weight – if you're the best at something nobody really plays, why bother?"

"All-Stars is a real wild-card in my opinion, which is part of why I wanted to work on it," Killian continues. "It ignores a lot of conventional thinking about fighters, both in terms of how you win (no lifebars, only supers kill, regular moves build super meter) and in terms of execution. There are some tricky styles of play, but none of the moves are hard to do at all (button, or button + direction), so you can get the basic elements very quickly and dive into strategy much faster than you could in a traditional fighter.

"Taking what people think of as a 'fun' or 'party' genre and sticking a bunch of extremely technical and smart players on the project has this amazing result – a game on very serious underpinnings with a zany fan-service wrapper. It ends up being something total noobs can have fun with while also rewarding smart players and clever mind reading. The noob won't beat the good player, but the weirdest thing about All-Stars is that I have fun even when I'm getting owned. Usually when I get creamed in a fighter, I get kind of depressed, or feel helpless, or maybe even angry.

"In All-Stars, for some reason, I'm left smiling and curious, with the urge to play just *one* more game. Maybe it's just PaRappa, but I think they're really on to something."

...

[solidsnakejej]

Release date: October 23rd for NA and 24th for EU, two new character will be announced tonight, and here are pre-order costumes

[LaLiLuLeLo]

Hey can we get a comprehensive list of who is confirmed in the game and who may be (like, unofficial but very likely) in the game edited into the OP?