Samurai Shodown Hibiki DLC Gets Release Date

SNK is revealing a new character trailer showing off its latest addition to Samurai Shodown, Hibiki Takane. The crossover character is set to join the long-running Japanese fighting game's roster next week.

The 20th entry in SNKs long-running fighting franchise announced its third batch of DLC characters at the beginning of the year. Two of those character's identities have been revealed thus far, with players now knowing when Hibiki will arrive. While released in 2019, Xbox Series X players recently received an early next-gen upgrade, boosting the game's framerate to a smooth 120 FPS.

Originally hailing from the '90s SNK title The Last Blade 2, Hibiki Takane's backstory involves being the daughter of a blacksmith who heads off on a journey to find Setsuna, a silver-haired man after her father is murdered following the forging of a particular sword that Setsuna requested. She has since appeared as a guest character in other titles, including the crossover fighter Capcom VS. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001. Samurai Shodown players can check out her new trailer, which showcases moves from the “Innocent Slash.”

Hibiki Takane will join the roster as the second DLC character from Samurai Shodown's Season Pass 3, joining other crossover characters like For Honor's Warden and Gongsun Li from Honor of Kings. The first character from the current pass was Cham Cham from Samurai Shodown 2, but otherwise, players are still mostly in the dark as to who the remaining two characters are, save for one confirmed from Arc System Works’ Guilty Gear. With Cham Cham joining last month, and Hibiki joining next week, players can likely expect info regarding the remaining two fighters sooner than later.

Samurai Shodown is a fighting game with a little bit of something for everyone, and it will be available on the Xbox Series X/S from March 16, 2021. The characters are extremely diverse, special moves are satisfying to pull off, and the gameplay is unlike any other modern fighting game on the market.

Samsho focuses on meticulous fighting, somewhat like real sword fighting. Every hit could lead to death and it's important to pay attention to the risk of trying something versus the reward one might get if it works. Because of this dynamic, Samsho works differently than most fighting games and can confuse new players so there're a few things to understand before the game really makes sense.

In terms of risk and reward, Samurai Shodown's heavy slashes are a big thing new players will try to abuse. Heavy slashes deal upwards of a quarter of someone's health from just one button and usually have the longest range of any character's normal attacks. This means they're easy to spam and will grant big rewards if just a few of them land.

Blocking heavy slashes will leave opponents in a vulnerable state called "recoil." In recoil, they're open to attacks and will take greater damage if the punish hits them for a counter hit. As a new player, this means it's imperative to block and wait for the opponent to make a mistake, so they open themselves up.