Fighting games are one of the few genres that work well on both home consoles and handhelds. Developer Lab Zero Games must be aware of this, given how their fighting game, Skullgirls, is coming to Nintendo’s hybrid home console and handheld system. According to Lab Zero’s panel at Anime Expo, a Skullgirls Switch version is incoming both digitally and on a physical cart. The developer did not give a specific release window other than “soon.”
This news comes by way of Twitter user AtroxChobatsu, who is currently working with Skullgirls developer Lab Zero Games. According to AtroxChobatsu, this version is the full console edition, as opposed to the free-to-play mobile game that came out in 2017. The official Skullgirls Twitter account confirmed the release shortly after the panel news leaked.
This Skullgirls Switch version is Skullgirls 2nd Encore, the extended edition with new characters, a voiced story mode, enhanced tutorials, challenges, and a survival mode. As the title implies, it is the second re-release of the game. Citing difficulties with submitting updates, Lab Zero separated itself from its publisher Konami following the game’s initial release in order to have more control over its patches.
Because of this split, the original Skullgirls was delisted from Xbox Live and PSN, which prompted Lab Zero to make and release the game’s first Encore edition. Whereas Encore had some new content, it was more positioned as the necessary start that the game need in order to live on. On the other hand, 2nd Encore was a more traditional fighting game upgrade with significantly more additions and tweaks. The 2nd Encore did not come to the Wii U because it didn’t have a publisher for that version.
Even though Skullgirls is over six years old, it shows how attractive the Switch is to developers, even for older games like Limbo. In December 2017, lifetime sales were at 10 million units. As of March 2018, Nintendo announced that Switch hardware sales had hit 17.79 million units. For comparison, lifetime sales for the GameCube, Wii, and Wii U were 21.74 million, 101.63 million, and 13.56 million, respectively.
