Today, developer SNK and publisher Athlon Games have officially announced the North American release date for Samurai Shodown. But that’s not all. The two companies have also revealed information on Samurai Shodown‘s new Dojo Mode, as well as a sweet deal for anyone planning on picking the game up early.
Samurai Shodown will launch for the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One on June 25, 2019. This is two days earlier than the Japanese release date, which was previously announced. The Nintendo Switch version of Samurai Shodown remains marked for Q4 2019, and the PC version is only slated for “a later date.”
If you’re planning to go ahead and preorder Samurai Shodown, or pick it up within its first few days, SNK and Athlon Games have a sweet deal for you. The previously-announced DLC season pass, which is planned to include four post-launch character additions, will be available to download for free until June 30, 2019. A press release announcing these details refers to this content as the “first six months of DLC,” which could imply longer-term plans for Samurai Shodown.
Aside from the Samurai Shodown release date and free season pass deal, SNK and Athlon Games have also revealed details of Dojo Mode, a new feature unique to Samurai Shodown. This mode accompanies a set of other modes including Story, Training, and Online Play. Dojo Mode is a new way for players to train themselves, via a learning AI.
According to the press release, Samurai Shodown is always watching you. That is to say, as players play, the game collects data on how they play for Dojo Mode. Based on this data, Samurai Shodown creates a “ghost” of the player, which they can turn around and fight for some personalized practice. These ghosts can be uploaded to the cloud, so friends can share ghost data with each other. SNK hopes Dojo Mode will catch on as a new way to help players learn and grow as fighters.
