Setsuka is coming to Soulcalibur 6 as a new DLC character, Bandai Namco has announced.

The super fast flower-loving Setsuka, who made her series debut in Soulcalibur 3, arrives in Soulcalibur 6 as DLC 11 on 4th August.

Meanwhile, the free update 2.20 adds a balance sweep, Setsuka's classic costume, a new stage (Murakumo Shrine Grounds), and a new Grøh episode. DLC 12, which is also due out 4th August, is Character Creation Set E, which adds a variety of Tekken-themed parts to the game.

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Bandai Namco has confirmed the next DLC character heading to Soulcalibur 6 is Hilde.

"Her royal highness Hilde will be making her way to the Stage of History!" Bandai Namco said across its social media accounts (thanks, TSA). "Get ready to add the Defender of the Kingdom to your roster of warriors!"

Hilde's been a roster staple since SoulCalibur 4, so its little surprise she also joins the ranks in the latest iteration of the fan-favourite fighting game.

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Humble has announced that the early unlock games in the December Monthly Bundle are Soulcalibur 6, Yakuza Kiwami and My Time at Portia.

It's another trio of solid picks after last month's incredibly strong group of early unlocks. Of the lot, Yakuza Kiwami seems like the biggest steal.

The Yakuza series has grown massively in popularity in recent years. If you've been interested to see what Kazuma Kiryu's bizarre antics are all about, then this bundle is the perfect place to start as Yakuza Kiwami is a remake of the first game.

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Now this is a surprise! Over 20 years after both series made their debut, we're finally getting a Soulcalibur / Samurai Shodown crossover.

The crossover comes in the form of a guest character for Soulcalibur 6. Haohmaru, the titular protagonist character of Samurai Shodown, is one of Soulcalibur 6's upcoming DLC characters. This means we're going to get a samurai showdown between Soulcalibur poster boy Mitsurugi and Haohmaru. Sparks will fly.

The announcement comes as part of the reveal of season two for Soulcalibur 6. The video for that, below, shows four new DLC characters are planned, one of which is Haohmaru.

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In the world of fighting games, frame data is used by advanced players who want to level up their skills. It's the numbers - a lot of numbers - that let you know how attacks actually work under the hood, how fast they are and how long it takes to recover from them after a block, among other things.

But not all games reveal the frame date to players. One such game is Soulcalibur 6. Why?

In a recently-published and rather illuminating Q&A with Project Soul, the developers explained the decision to withhold frame data from players, saying: "As Project Soul, not releasing frame data is part of our policy."

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Bandai Namco has confirmed Amy as the next DLC character for Soulcalibur 6.

The character was announced during the Evo Japan tournament in Fukuoka alongside the trailer, below.

Amy first appeared in Soulcalibur 2 but was a bonus playable character in Soulcalibur 3 before becoming a main playable character in subsequent entries in the series. She's the adoptive daughter of Raphael and so uses a similar rapier fighting style. There's no release date for Amy, but the trailer says she'll be out soon.

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The Soulcalibur 6 community is currently trying to work out who will be released as DLC following a datamine that revealed apparent character codenames.

Soulcalibur 6 received an update last week and, as expected, dataminers scoured its innards on the hunt for DLC character clues (thanks, EventHubs).

In a file that mentions Cassandra and Amy as DLC characters (neither are announced or released as DLC characters yet, although both pop up in the story), six new DLC characters are listed with what look like codenames.

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Marking the series' 20th anniversary, a tale of souls and swords is retold once more in Soulcalibur 6 - a sequel that positions itself as something of a successor to the Dreamcast classic, in reprising its cast. It's a direct link that only highlights just how far we've come in the interim. We have two decades worth of move-set changes, added mechanics and technical upgrades to factor in, where Bandai Namco's efforts today are based on an entirely different engine. With the move to Unreal Engine 4, as with Tekken 7, it gives the team scope to push for more effects and shaders than we'd thought possible back in 1998. At launch, it also gives it the means to scale across more platforms than any entry before it. In doing so, there's a huge gulf in image quality between the four current-gen machines.

As usual, it's resolution that scales most obviously across all four console versions. Xbox One X fares best here, even though it's only truly hitting 2560x1440 while connected to a 4K display. There's no hint of dynamic res scaling, but it does hold up reasonably well even so - just expect more shimmer on specular highlights. In terms of the visual feature set, it's effectively a match with PC at its best - the only system that can deliver full 4K. We tested this on a Titan X Maxwell, broadly equivalent to a GTX 980 Ti and the popular GTX 1070. This still drops frames in targeting 4K at max settings, requiring internal resolution scaling to drop to 80 per cent to lock at 60fps. For reference then, a GTX 1080 should be your target for a full 4K60.

Tracking back to the consoles, the next-best version of Soulcalibur 4 is inevitably the PlayStation 4 Pro, though only a native 1920x1080 is possible here. Anyone expecting proper support for an Ultra HDTV will be disappointed, but if you connect the Pro to a 1080p display, it's the only console to give an unscaled match for the final output. Indeed, a standard PS4 renders only at 900p, while Xbox One only pushes a comparatively meagre 720p. The trade here is obvious - aside from some small frame-drops in non-playable sections on Xbox One X, Soulcalibur 6 delivers a locked 60 frames per second - essential for a game like this.

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2B from Nier: Automata is coming to Soulcalibur 6 as a guest character.

The Square Enix / Bandai Namco crossover was announced at Paris Games Week, and there's a video, below, showing 2B slicing and dicing while using some of her trademark abilities from Nier: Automata, including a teleport and the pod support system.

2B, who has beef with veteran Soulcalibur 6 character Ivy for some reason, is an interesting choice for a guest character since she's an android and Soulcalibur is a medieval fantasy fighter. But, then again, Darth Vader was a guest character in Soulcalibur 4, so really anything goes.

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UK physical launch sales of Soulcalibur 6 are down drastically compared to Soulcalibur 5 - just the latest of many 2018 games where this has occurred.

Earlier this month, UK physical sales of the excellent Assassin's Creed Odyssey were 25 per cent down compared to last year's Origins - although worldwide, combined digital and physical sales were up overall. And then last week, Black Ops 4's UK physical launch sales were the lowest seen in a decade.

Soulcalibur 6 this week has, arguably, a tougher comparison than both. Its UK physical launch sales were down more than 55 per cent compared to Soulcalibur 5 - although this launched all the way back in 2012, when digital sales were far from the norm.

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