Killer Instinct Textual Stream Q&A Session 05/15/15

Here’s the Q&A sessions from this week’s Textual Stream. Read on to find out about the potential for a future vampire character, the planned release for the ARIA female announcer and more!

The default orange coloration in her (ARIA) concept doesn’t really FEEL Ultratech imho, is that bound to change? or is that her final color concept of her default skin?

ARIA’s default colors are gold and grey – we just wanted to make sure that we had enough color area on her, so we used a different one in the concept to make it stand out. That color set is in the game, just not the default.

If season 3 does become a reality, would you think about having a vampire to join in this time? I can imagine Sabrewulf having a rival!

Vampire is a trope we’ve not covered yet, so if/when an S3 happened, that would be a good candidate for a character.

Will we see an ARIA stream before or after she’s playable at Combo Breaker?

ARIA will be debuted at Combo Breaker – look for a stream!

What are your immediate plans after the ARIA patch with respect to balance or character changes? EVO is July 17th, and there are a ton of very important tournaments at the end of June. I’m guessing by the lack of planned balance patches in 2.7 that you guys are fairly happy with the game’s balance, but if ARIA has some bug that really hurts her competitively, is the studio willing to push a fix for that halfway through June so we can play a “stable” version of the game for at least a month before Evo? Or will the ARIA patch be your last gameplay-related adjustment before Evo?

Like we said in the last text stream, we’re slowing down on character updates.

What takeaways have you, Microsoft, and Iron Galaxy taken away from this season while undertaking a very demanding task for 9 months?

A character a month is beyond amazing in terms of development.

Will we be able to play as ARIA in Story Mode? If so, who’ll the final boss then?

I guess you’ll have to play ARIA’s story to find out!

Since Shadow Jago will be getting his balanced boss moveset later on, will he also have his boss animations (you know, his VS. Screen pose, intro pose, and outro pose)?

Yes!

I know this is rather random and I know there’s a kajillion other, more important things you’re adding to the game but… what happened to the proposed dojo mode for each character?

At the beginning of the season, we make a huge list of everything we want to get done and prioritize it all, then put time estimates to each task. As the season goes on, we re-prioritize and evaluate what we can and can’t do based on community feedback and how our team feels how the Season is shaping up.

Since Shago is becoming a real character will be publicly available after he gets his moveset?

Much like classic Disney films, he may be available from time to time, but always in limited windows, if at all.

Is Season 1 getting the same Story Mode treatment or is this just Season 2?

The new story mode is for season 2 characters only, but Season 1 characters are very much involved in the mix.

will the ARIA announcer come with the 2.7 update?

ARIA’s announcer option will be arriving in the 2.8 update in June along with Story Mode!

 

About Daniel Durock

Founder/Writer For Killer Instinct Central. SAG-AFTRA Actor Since 2017! Twitter: @danieldurock