It’s unusual to have a video such as this made available on the internet before it has had its five minutes strutting around on E3’s mega stage, but here it is nonetheless. Namco have been working hard on Soul Calibur V under the radar for a quite a while now and until this trailer, we’ve only had teaser videos and barely recognizable screenshots to ponder over.
Soul Calibur 4 was a bit of a flop and a disappointing leap to the next gen consoles despite it being an acceptably solid fighting game. The main problem was that it felt like an up scaled PS2 game with little to no gameplay evolution. With the new one hopefully arriving some time in 2012 the developers hope to reinvigorate the franchise and inject that colourful vibrance back into it.
In its heyday Soul Calibur games were considered the smooth, elegant, and deadly fighting titles of a more sophisticated crop. There is definitely still a gaping hole in the genre that Soul Calibur 5 ideally aims to fill, and there is certainly a fan base and eager audience patiently waiting and ready for a fresh helping of sexy swordplay.
More preview content is set to debut at next week’s E3 convention, stay tuned folks.