Category: Entertainment & Lifestyle

It’s been a hot minute since we’ve received a big anime adaptation for a fighting game after Tekken, and Guilty Gear is finally about to have its chance to shine in a different medium.

Arc System Works has now dropped the full trailer for Guilty Gear Strive: Dual Rulers alongside giving fans some new release information.

The trailer shows the new character Unika, who will also be coming to Strive Season 4 as a playable character, seeking to wipe out all Gears in the world.

Meanwhile, Ky and Dizzy are preparing their wedding, which is causing strife and unrest already with a union between a human and a Gear.

The official website confirms Sin, Sol, Bridget, Ramlethal, Elphelt, Jack-O, Baiken, Johnny, Leo, Vernon and Nerville Hammer will be part of the anime’s cast as well.

Dual Riders is set to begin airing on Crunchyroll this April though it doesn’t seem like there’s a solid release date quite yet.

The official description for the anime is as follows:

You can check out the full trailer below as well as the official key art for the anime.

Click images for larger versions

Sent in by tdanger.

Corners in Street Fighter has always been a problem, now they’re crazier than ever

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” Patrick Swayze once quipped in 1987’s Dirty Dancing, coincidentally the same year that the original Street Fighter would be released in arcades.

Fast-forward about 38 years, and the corner in Street Fighter 6 is hands down the most deadly and impactful space on screen in the entire franchise, and is often the deciding factor in the rounds where opponents are placed into this spot.

There are several old and many brand new reasons for this, here’s a brief rundown of them.

1. Combos and therefore damage are extended in the corner.

2. Drive Impacts are a constant threat to cornered foes, especially when burned out.

3. Throw loops are more effective.

4. Limited ability to escape and diminished defensive options.

While some of these things existed in prior Street Fighter games, and the corner has always been a spot you did not want to be in, the sixth entry in the franchise says “Hold my beer!” and throws the kitchen sink at players who find themselves in this unfortunate spot on screen.

This was clearly intentional by the developers of Street Fighter 6, as the game heavily rewards players who corner their opponents, to the point where Capcom has had to nerf several character’s corner carry and side-switch options for being too dominant during normal gameplay.

It’s quite common to see high level players trade some of their life to escape the corner, because while losing some of your health may lead to you being knocked out, staying in the corner almost always will.

Thus, Street Fighter 6’s corner starts to act like its own vortex that’s character independent. The whole cast is capable of making your life miserable if they can pin you down to one side of the screen, and you’re usually guaranteed to lose at least some of your life while trying to escape out of there.

Rashid is allowed to easily corner opponents and has many corner escapes options, because Capcom loves this guy and he’s required to be top tier

There have been a few suggestions in terms of how to tone down corners in Street Fighter 6, by either making the stages longer, or reducing various cast members’ ability to push you there with their moves.

However, even if the developers were to nerf these things, the corner would still be the deadliest it has ever been in a Street Fighter game due to the above mentioned factors.

The bottom line is you should take Patrick Swayze’s line to heart and avoid being in there at all costs in Street Fighter 6, and place a special emphasis on putting your opponents there whenever you can.

Thus far, the only characters confirmed to be playable in 2XKO are Darius, Ekko, Ahri, Yasuo, Illaoi, Braum, Jinx, and Katarina. Being that 2XKO is a 2v2 team fighting game (as the name implies), there needs to be a lot more characters in order for players to properly express themselves.

Justin Wong recently released a video where he explained that he felt something was “missing” from the available archetypes in 2XKO from playing the beta. As such, he created a tier list (with help from his chat) that details which characters he thinks should join 2XKO’s roster.

The first character that Justin Wong decides on is Annie. In League of Legends, Annie has the ability to summon “Tibbers,” a giant teddy bear, to attack enemies with.

As such, Annie seems primed to be the perfect puppet archetype in 2XKO. This is not a playstyle that’s currently represented with the game’s current roster.

Wong is also hopeful that Ashe makes it in since she’d effectively be a take on Marvel vs. Capcom’s Hawkeye. In general, Wong just wants a strong zoning character to be in 2XKO.

Ultimately though, Wong arranges all the League of Legends champions into one of four different categories. Funnily enough, a sizeable part of this cast gets placed in the “please don’t invite” group.

Check it all out below:

Click images for larger versions

Street Fighter 6 has helped break down some barriers between fighting game players and video game players in general, and special events like this bring the hype to more people.

Sajam Slam 4 is going down this week pairing together Street Fighter pros with other fighting game players, VTubers and streamers in a multi-stage team tournament that always proves to be a lot of fun.

There are 6 team captains in total between Brian_F, JB, Nephew, Shine, ElChakotay, and Diaphone with four additional team members to make up their rosters.

You’ll find some other familiar faces from across the FGC like Curiousjoi, Koefficient, and PhiDX along with some previous Sajam Slam participants and those who seem like they’ve never touched a fighting game before.

The event is split up into three parts with the group round robin stage taking place January 22 and 24.

Their team records will determine ranking seeds for a qualifier tournament on January 26 where the top team will fly to Japan for a grand finals match against a team from that region.

Streaming will be handled by Sajam on Twitch as well as the individual creators’ personal channels.

One look at Ken in Street Fighter 6 is enough to tell you that the character has been through a lot since the events surrounding Street Fighter 5 and Street Fighter 3. Mr. Masters just isn’t his usual cheerful and cocky self.

During Ken’s arcade playthrough, Ken actually ponders about potentially killing JP as JP was the mastermind of the “Nayshall Incident,” despite Ken getting implicated for it. According to Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama, Ken’s master, Gouken, is completely unaware of this situation.

“Gouken is alive and can still fight,” responded Nakayama to a question about Gouken’s whereabouts in Street Fighter 6. “‘I live deep in the mountains, rejoicing in the growth of my two apprentices.’”

It would seem that this isolation is the cause of Gouken’s obliviousness to Ken’s recent problems. Evidently, Gouken is content with the idea that Ryu and Ken no longer require their master’s guidance.

“He wouldn’t know about the recent unfortunate incident that happened to Ken,” concluded Nakayama.

Though it was believed that Gouken had previously been felled by Akuma’s hand, it turned out that he was actually left in a coma. Needless to say, it’s exceptionally rare for a character to die and stay dead in the Street Fighter universe.

Like Gen, Gouken is among one of the older combatants in Street Fighter. While it wouldn’t be surprising to hear of Gouken or Gen succumbing to natural causes due to their advanced ages, it hasn’t happened by the time of Street Fighter 6’s events.

During Ryu’s prologue in Street Fighter 5, Gouken makes a cameo appearance by giving Ryu instructions. Of course, it’s implied that Ryu went directly to Gouken about his struggles with the Satsui no Hado.

More than likely, Ken would have to seek Gouken out if he wanted help or advice with his current predicament. Unless something like that happens, Gouken really has no way of knowing what’s been happening to any of his former students.

A conversation with Ryu in the World Tour mode reveals that he’s of a somewhat similar mindset. While Ryu is actually aware of Ken’s problems, he figures that Ken would make contact if he ever wanted help. Ultimately, Ryu is content with just continuing his training until that time ever arrive.

It’s been a long time since Gouken was made playable in Street Fighter 4. Of course, with Gouken confirmed to still be alive, this means that he could potentially join the Street Fighter 6 roster as DLC someday. We’ll just have to see if that ever happens.

Gouken is alive and can still fight. I live deep in the mountains, rejoicing in the growth of my two apprentices.　He wouldn’t know about the recent unfortunate incident that happened to Ken.

— TAKA-nakayama (@takaNakayama) January 15, 2025

Maybe he’s on the dark side of la luna

We’re currently in one of those rare instances where fighting game players are collectively coming together from around the world to combine their efforts and solve a tricky riddle.

Mortal Kombat 1’s latest update didn’t just add Conan the Barbarian, but also the hidden pink ninja Floyd that we’re now seeing more of and learning the secrets to unlock him.

Although modders have been able to play as Floyd and dataminers have ripped his assets and rewards, we still haven’t seen anyone share footage of them fully completing the required tasks and entering the fight.

Thethiny is one of the community members leading the charge to piece together this secret fight’s challenges and appearances.

Between Versus and Towers, Floyd has a small chance of showing up (as little as 2% for 100 ladder matches) where he’ll then give you a hint as to your current challenge.

The dataminer has helped put together a list / spreadsheet of 37 different challenges that could be required to gain access to Floyd’s hidden battle.

Updated list of All Floyd Challenges and how to perform them. Some of them are missing details so I would appreciate your help in figuring them out!

– You don’t need to do all 37 to get Floyd.
– Not everyone has the same active challenges.
– You can do them offline on Very Easy pic.twitter.com/kejn9spadt

— thethiny (@thethiny) January 22, 2025

We won’t go over all of them here, but here’s what the first five look like and their descriptions.

1. Total Disrespect – Taunt 4 times successfully without attacking

2. Jumping Gets You Nowhere – Don’t Jump? Jump?

3. Klean Sweep – Win using only Sweeps

4. Get Over Here Already – Defeat Scorpion as Scorpion using Spears only

5. Flipping Out – Flip Stance too many times

So some of them can be a bit vague and aren’t fully figured out yet.

You don’t need to complete all 37 to get Floyd’s fight to appear, but it seems you do need at least 3.

And once a challenge is complete, it remains that way until the pink ninja is defeated for that cycle. Player 2’s challenges are apparently also separate from Player 1.

Although we haven’t witnessed anyone doing the whole unlocking process legitimately, Thethiny did share also the special battle intro animation for Floyd that is pretty neat.

The secret ninja comes down in multiple beams of light like Power Rangers with the full rainbow of fighters before stopping on the pink with the text “You Found Floyd”.

Interestingly, Thethiny notes there is another scene that triggers before this intro not included in the clip.

This also gives us a better chance to see Floyd’s moveset in action where he essentially has the special powers of Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Rain, Ermac and even some of his own abilities using teleports and rainbows.

We can also see this hidden fight version of Floyd has 1337 health as another cheeky little reference.

And it seems you only get one chance in one round against this suped up take on Chameleon before having to start the process over if you lose.

The community will put all the pieces together likely sometime soon, but it’s pretty impressive for NetherRealm Studios that it’s taken this long already to crack the code and still not be done.

Are you trying to find Floyd?

Mai Shiranui is set to join Street Fighter 6 as its second guest character on February 5, 2025. She apparently promises to be the good girl of everyone’s dreams upon her arrival then.

Over on Reddit, Mai’s game faces have been revealed, though it’s not entirely clear where they came from. Needless to say, Mai’s expressions have caught the attention of a lot of people already.

In one of her appearances, Mai seems to be winking at the other player. While she does this, she’s giving off a radiant smile.

The next game face for Mai has her showing off her pouty face. She’s seen facing directly towards the opposing character where she is frowning with her eyes closed.

For her final revealed expression, she appears to be teasing with a seductive and alluring pose. Though she’s technically facing away, her eyes are locked towards the other direction.

Of course, there are technically two game faces missing from this set as each character has five expressions that they can make with the default direction and four cardinals.

Check out the revealed game faces for Mai Shiranui below:

Click images for larger versions

The January patch for Mortal Kombat 1 is playable now that the server maintenance period has concluded. For those that already purchased the Kombat Pack 2, Conan the Barbarian is now available.

It turns out that NetherRealm Studios has released some Conan the Barbarian themed costumes for some of the base roster characters. Funnily enough, it would seem that they’re also addressing a longstanding critique about how Geras, Baraka, and Ashrah almost never get costumes compared to the rest of the cast.

Geras has a costume that has him wearing Conan’s garbs. Of course, it should be easy enough to distinguish Geras and Conan from one another during gameplay.

Baraka gets a costume that dresses him up like Subotai. This is a character known for being Conan’s ally and traveling companion.

Finally, Ashrah gets attire that has her appear like Valeria. She tends to be the love interest for Conan the Barbarian.

There are six colors available for each of these costumes. All three of these costume bundles are being priced at 500 Dragon Crystals, which is about the equivalent of $5 USD.

Check them all out below:

Click images for larger versions

The Nintendo Switch 2 has finally been officially revealed. This new trailer confirmed a few things about the Nintendo Switch 2, but many other details remain shrouded in mystery.

As expected, Nintendo wasn’t quite ready to reveal the upcoming console’s launch price. Due to this, IGN has apparently consulted a number of industry analysts to get an estimation of the Nintendo Switch 2’s impact on all of our wallets.

Dr. Serkan Toto of Kantan Games Inc. told IGN that $400 is the “price they need to succeed” and that he “cannot see a lot from the trailer that would justify them charging $450.”

All of the other industry analysts that IGN consulted also appeared to agree on this number. Of course, we don’t have any confirmation about the Nintendo Switch 2’s actual specs yet, so the actual amount could fluctuate as we find out more about the console.

It’s worth noting that when the Switch was initially launched on March 3, 2017, it costed about $300. Ultimately, the Nintendo Switch 2 is expected to behave as a direct upgrade over its predecessor so the increase does make sense.

Meanwhile, the Nintendo Switch OLED still currently costs $350. While the trailer and rumors suggest that the Nintendo Switch 2’s screen will be inferior to that of the OLED screen (LED screen like the Nintendo Switch), the Nintendo Switch 2 is still expected to outperform the Nintendo Switch OLED in other aspects.

The $500 price tag for the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 on their respective launch dates also make it likely that we’ll see a $400 price tag for the Nintendo Switch 2 when it’s launched. Traditionally, Nintendo consoles tend to be lower powered compared to their Microsoft and Sony counterparts, but have cheaper costs.

However, some of the analysts noted that Nintendo could potentially go as high as $500 based on supply issues that may exist for the Nintendo Switch 2. One analyst noted that Nintendo is more dependent on their console sales when compared to Microsoft and Sony.

“Also, Nintendo, unlike the other platform holders almost wholly relies on its console business, so it cannot as easily take big loss-leading risks on pricing (the console itself would need to be profitable, not just offset by software sales),” said Rhys Elliot of MIDiA.

One thing not talked about is the expected cost of Nintendo Switch 2 games. However, we’re likely going to see $70 become the new norm for games considering that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the Switch was released at a $70 price tag.

The Nintendo Switch 2 focused Direct has been scheduled to take place on April 2, 2025, but we probably won’t hear anything about the price of the upcoming hybrid device then. In other words, it’ll still probably be a long while before we have any actual confirmation about the console’s cost.

Mai’s gameplay trailer may have dropped a hint

Mai’s Street Fighter 6 gameplay trailer was very telling in that it revealed a lot of what the upcoming DLC character can do in battle and answered some questions many of us had about her gameplay. While we learned more about her various special moves, her supers, and saw her unique Flame Stocks mechanic in action, there were also a handful of subtle things that may not have been readily noticed by everyone.

You probably spotted her Fatal Fury-esque lane change during one of her target combos, but did you also notice anything different with her pre-fight intro against Chun-Li? While it is currently just speculation, Capcom may have dropped a hint at special fight intros between characters coming back in Street Fighter 6 during the Mai trailer.

About 20 seconds into the official Mai showcase for Street Fighter 6, we see Mai’s pre-fight intro play out, then Chun-Li’s. They got me in the first half because nothing looks unusual or out of the ordinary up until this point, but what follows is certainly not how things usually work in-game.

The announcer calls out “Round 1,” and before the inevitable “FIGHT!” happens, we see Chun-Li and Mai engage in a Drive Impact clash that sends them both flying back across the screen in opposite directions. The announce calls “FIGHT!” when the two Drive Impacts clash, which is a point of interest for several reasons.

For one, if you’re familiar with how Street Fighter 6 matches (and many other fighting game matches) begin then you know that the characters cannot move until after the announcer says fight. But here, with Mai and Chun-Li specifically, we see them clearly engaged in a clash much earlier than they should be able to.

And speaking of Mai and Chun-Li in particular, these two characters have a history and Capcom has made special fight intros for them in the past as well. Looking back to something like Capcom vs. SNK 2, fighters who are connected in some way (either through similarities in how they fight, lore, or both being the most popular female character their franchises have) received unique interactions if they came up against one another in a match— and this was indeed the case for Chun and Mai in CvS2.

Capcom has not been subtle about adding references to past games and Easter eggs into Street Fighter 6, not only with characters like Akuma and M. Bison, but also for the franchise’s first outside guest character and fellow SNK alum, Terry Bogard. It could be interesting to see special intros come back with the Mai update, and Mai and Chun-Li would be a great start on that front.

However, on the other side of the coin there are also some arguments that could potentially debunk the potential for special intros in Street Fighter 6. The first of which is the obvious — strong editing skills.

This particular scene from the trailer could just be some slick video editing, or it could just be something Capcom put together on the programming side of things to make the trailer a bit more cinematic.

In addition to this, Mai and Chun-Li are seen flying very far back as a result of the Drive Impact clash, and this does happen normally when two Drive Impacts hit each other on the same frame with any characters involved. It would be odd to see them move so far back on the screen at the start of a fight considering the round start position is not only always consistent, but also very important.

Mai Shiranui is set to join Street Fighter 6 as a Season 2 DLC character on February 5. It will be at that point that we likely learn whether not this was actually a special pre-fight intro in action or simply some quality video editing.

You can see Chun-Li and Mai’s pre-fight clash by clicking the video below.