This update addresses 2 bugs in the Marie Early Access Release

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MARIE DLC

• We addressed an issue where Marie was not properly unlocking for users who purchased Marie's individual DLC.

ANNIE

• Updated Annie's command list to better reflect Star Power changes.

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(Build version 3.6.6)

Hey everyone,

Marie is now entering her Early Access phase! This is a huge development milestone as it means she is on the final road to full completion.

Here’s a preview of what to expect below:

• MARIE
  
  • Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Early Access
    
  • Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Full Release
    
  • Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Story Updates
• VFX & CHARACTER ADJUSTMENTS

Enough intro! IT’S SHOWTIME!

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Skullgirls 2nd Encore character development usually falls into four distinct phases:

Pre-Alpha: Work is being done on the character, but is not fit for public release.Alpha: The character is now publicly playable in an Alpha build on Steam, though they are still unfinished. Probably missing lots of animations, sound design, etc.Early Access: The character is now mostly complete, but still needs final balance tuning and other polish.Full Release: The character is fully complete, including all additional features like their Story Mode.

We have now moved onto Early Access, so we’re approaching the finish line of Marie development!


Marie is now 100% animated and colored. No more sketchy black and white animation frames!
She also has all her voice lines and sound effects fully tuned. She also gets a bunch of new palettes!



For the remainder of Marie’s development we'll be focusing on final balance adjustments and bug fixes.

You can give balance feedback and report bugs in our official Discord, or our official forum in the Marie section.

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/skullgirls

Skullheart Forums: https://skullheart.com/



Now that Marie is in Early Access, her individual character DLC is available to purchase on Steam! If you own EITHER the Season 1 Pass or the individual Marie DLC you will be able to try her out.

Once you have the Season 1 Pass or Individual DLC, launch the game in BETA mode by pressing the green PLAY button on Skullgirls 2nd Encore from your Steam library page, then selecting "Skullgirls Beta (Marie Alpha)". You can also launch the game in BETA mode by navigating to the in-game Options menu, and pressing "Switch To Beta".

In BETA mode, you can pick Marie on the character select screen as normal!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557981/Skullgirls_Season_1_Pass

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Once Marie is fully completed, she will be released on all systems roughly simultaneously.

We’re aiming to release Marie in Q1 2024.

Full Release will come with all the usual bells and whistles:

• Marie will be fully complete!
  
• Marie’s new Stage(s?) will be fully complete with final music.
  
• A brand new story mode for Marie.
  
• Final Marie balance pass.
  
• A full set of 30+ palettes.
  
• Character tutorials.
  
• A new alternate voice pack.

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When Marie gets her full release she will come with her own Story Mode that delves deep into her relationship with the Skull Heart. After Marie’s story mode is released all of the Season 1 Pass character story modes will be updated with full voice acting in an independent update.

The full voice update will not be until after Marie’s release because we are still organizing recording sessions for the LARGE returning cast that we need to voice the myriad of characters that appear across Skullgirls 2nd Encore’s 18 Story Modes.

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Note that these changes only apply to the BETA version of the game.

EFFECTS

We've got some new effects entering this update to help highlight and demonstrate an advanced mechanic known in the community as "Pushblock Guard Cancel" (PBGC). If you're not sure what that is, you can check the in-game tutorial to refresh yourself, which will be updated at a later date to reference these effects.

Our goal is to make it more clear to new players where PBGC windows are, and when they are being successfully executed. This should also make the mechanic easier to explain to new players.

When a PBGC window is available, green sparks will fly by the character, seen below. This effect will only show itself if performing a PBGC would have actually reduced the amount of time spent in blockstun.



When performing a successful PBGC, a force field effect will appear on the character, seen here:

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MARIE

• Fixed a bug introduced in the last update where "Suction Obstruction" command throw (QCF+LP+LK) was starting a combo at IPS stage 3 instead of stage 2.
  
• Fixed a bug where Marie's Air Throw would start a combo at IPS stage 1 instead of IPS stage 2.
  
• Marie Go 'Round [H] no longer reduces damage and removes the stagger opportunity when used more than once in a combo. This allows Marie to perform a grounded Marie Go 'Round [H] and stagger even if the airborne version connected in the same combo. You can still only stagger an opponent once per combo, per global rules.
  
• Reduce active frames of "Weight of our Will" (QCB+PP) when landing and exploding.
  
• Tweaked hurtbox during falling hitstun frames to make Double's Cilia Slide routes (and other combos) slightly more consistent on her.

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VALENTINE

Valentine has new effects for her different Vial Hazard types so that you can easily distinguish which type of vial she is loading, beyond just looking at the color of it. This is especially helpful for colorblind players.

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ANNIE

While we'd normally prefer to release balance changes for multiple characters at once, Annie's Star Power rework has become intertwined with Marie's Early Access release due to engine and code changes required to support its parallel development. As such, Annie's balance changes are arriving early and will be available in this update.

Please note we have balance changes coming down for the pipe for other characters beyond Annie, but those changes aren't finalized just yet. You can expect more patches soon with additional balance changes in a future update!

• Crescent Cut
  • The projectile will now end if Annie is interrupted before the attack goes active. After the attack is active, it will still trade and stick around even if Annie is hit.
    
  • Crescent Cut [L] adjusted from +0 to -1 on block, point blank.
    
  • Crescent Cut [M] adjusted from +4 to +2 on block, point blank.
    
  • Crescent Cut [H] start up increased by 6F.
    (... We're lowering the effectiveness of throwing out a Crescent Cut while near the opponent in a variety of situations, and lowering the odds of Annie receiving an extremely favorable trade. For H Crescent, we're electing to only adjust the start up of it to keep it just as effective as a neutral and approach tool as she chases behind it.)
• Star Power
  
  • Star Power now costs 3 meter to activate.
    
  • Star Power now works off a timer instead of draining Annie's meter to perform attacks. Metergain is reduced to 33% during Star Power. When Annie performs a move that is boosted by Star Power (summoning a star or performing a boosted Special Move), it drains a large chunk of her remaining Star Power time. Annie's rainbow shadow silhouette effect will shrink and pulse faster as time runs out. Similar to Painwheel, Star Power will not run out of time if Annie is performing a combo, for now.
    
  • While in Star Power, and only once, Annie can perform a new move, "Star Cancel", to cancel an attack at any point and quickly enter an idle state. This can be triggered by simultaneously pressing three punches, or three kicks, or LP + LK plus one other button.
    
  • Star Power activation no longer ends super freeze early when used as a DHC, making it considerably safer and easier to DHC into.
    
  • Annie can now use all of her other previously disabled Blockbusters (Sagan Beam, Meteor Right, etc) during Star Power.
    
  • Star Power deactivation, "Gravity Collapse" knocks up higher than before, and no longer costs any meter to use while Annie is the point character. Using it as a DHC costs one bar.
    
  • Annie's normals no longer produce stars by default. All heavy attacks (except cHK) can be charged to summon stars by holding HP or HK. Charging adds extra start up to the attack.
    
  • Adjusted various visual effects related to Star Power and stars.
    
  • cHK will always cause a red bounce instead of a blue bounce if Annie is in Star Power.
    
  • The following Special Moves have new properties:
    
    • Crescent Cut [H] hits three times, and will not vanish even if Annie is hit out of the start up.
      
    • North Knuckle [H] follow-up slam deals bonus damage, hitpause, and will wall bounce the opponent.
      
    • Re Entry performs a new type of kick that starts faster, travels faster, hits overhead, and performs a hit on landing.
      
    • Destruction Pillar can be used in the air, and will always knock down even when used for the second time in a combo. Destruction Pillar (ground and air) will not drain any additional time off Annie's remaining Star Power timer.
  • Photo Bop can now be used at any time, for 5 meter. The input has been changed back to the older version, using the same input as her taunt but with two punches instead of one.
    
  • Photo Bop deals slightly more damage, and has an added camera flash that deals a hit.
• Other
  
  • Adjusted hurtbox on cLP.
    
  • Destruction Pillar
    
    • When blocked as an assist, Annie will stop moving forward to ensure she lands in front of the opponent instead of behind them.
      
    • Once Annie is airborne, the hitbox size is reduced, similar to Filia. Initial hitboxes unchanged.
  • Damage Tuning
    
    • cHP: 1200 → 1000
      
    • cLP: 300, 300 → 150, 150
      
    • jHP: 875 → 750
      
    • jMP: 250x4 → 180x4
      
    • fHP: 1300 → 1100
      
    • sHK: 950 → 750
      
    • sMK: 400, 500 → 400, 300
      
    • sLK: 200, 200, 300 → 100, 100, 200
      
    • sLP: 300, 300 → 300, 200
      
    • Destruction Pillar [H]: 1100 → 1000
      
    • Meteor Strike: When used as a DHC, scaling is set to 50% instead of 70%.
  • If Annie has used all three of her Re Entry kicks in a combo and is airborne when the combo resets, her next Re Entry kick will be the first one, instead of the worse version that prevents combos.
    
  • Tweaked palette 7 and 30 rainbow colors to be consistent with all other Annie palettes.
    
  • Tweaked star colors on all palettes.

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That’s a wrap for today!

We’re excited to see what you can do with Marie now that she’s on the road to full completion! Don’t be shy on leaving us feedback on any of these changes on the Discord or Forums. We want to know what you think!

Thanks so much again for all of your support, and stay tuned here and on our social media pages (Twitter, Facebook) any upcoming news and events.

- All of us at Hidden Variable Studios and Future Club <3

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(Version 3.6.5)

Today's update is primarily focused on an Mac bug fix with a few other small bugs being addressed as well.

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MAC CRASH FIX

We have found and addressed the issue caused by the macOS version increase in the last update. Users experiencing crashes on older versions of macOS (v12 and older) should now be able to play Skullgirls 2nd Encore again. We appreciate your patience as we investigated the issue.

MARIE

• Hilgard, when spawned from Hilgard's Haymaker, spawns a little closer to Big Band, to prevent some unintended drops, such as cHP Hilgard's Haymaker [L] using OTG against him.
  
• Hilgard, when spawned from Hilgard's Haymaker, has a maximum distance he can spawn from Marie, to prevent some situations where he would appear too far behind.
  
• Fixed a bug where Dust Bunny could activate Undizzy in the middle of its hits in some edge cases.

GENERAL

• Fixed a rendering issue with ASG Lab's when playing with Big Band with 2D Backgrounds enabled.

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(Build version 3.6.4)

Today's update focuses on a Mac requirement update and Marie combat bug fixes.

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Mac OSX Required Version Increase

As of October 31st, 2023, Apple requires us to update some of our tools used to build the Mac OSX version of the game. This has resulted in us needing to increase the minimum Mac OSX version required to run Skullgirls 2nd Encore from 10.9 (Mavericks) to 10.13 (High Sierra). Since 10.13 (High Sierra) is the lowest version supported by Steam as of September 2023, we are hopeful this change will not make the game unplayable for any current Mac OSX users. If you experience any new bugs on Mac OSX as a result of this, please report them in our official Discord or Forums. Thank you!Discord: https://discord.com/invite/skullgirlsSkullheart Forums: https://skullheart.com/

MARIE

• Suction Obstruction (QCF+LP+LK) when used to start a chain at max Undizzy now triggers a burst.
  
• Reduced Carpel Pummel (QCF+PP) damage from 2500 to 2000.
  
• Reduced Repetitive Skeleton Impact (QCF+KK) base damage from 800 to 650.
  (As before, each new slam adds an additional 100 damage than the last.)
  
• Reduced Air Throw recovery on whiff.
  
• Fixed a bug where Dust Bunny (QCF+P) would add wrong (15) Undizzy amounts and activate Undizzy in incorrect situations.
  
• Hilgard's Haymaker
  
  • Fixed numerous bugs where Hilgard could not be defeated if attacked (with or without armor) during the end of his punch from Hilgard's Haymaker.
    
  • Hilgard spawns further backwards if Marie is close to the opponent, and the distance Marie has to be to the opponent to be considered "close" is more lenient now. After performing a sHP or jHP that make contact, he spawns even further backwards.
    
  • Hilgard continues falling towards the floor more reliably even when performing an airborne punch.
    
  • Hilgard slows down from his charge towards the opponent more reliably now if he's in range to punch.
    
  • Hilgard retains a bit more of follow-through momentum when punching.
    
  • Hilgard will spawn further backwards if there is a wall in front of Marie.
• Tag In
  
  • Marie now travels faster while riding the vacuum.
    
  • Marie now has to wait a little longer before she can manually dismount early (press P or K) from the tag in.
    
  • Fixed a bug where Marie could go off camera with tag in some cases.
    
  • Marie dismounts earlier than before if she approaches the stage edge while riding.
• Tweaked VFX on Marie Go 'Round [H] (QCB+HP) to be larger and easier to see.
  
• cLP (first hit only) blockstun reduced by 1F, increased recovery by 2F.
  
• Fixed a bug where Hilgard could follow Marie's position and float up with her if she cancelled quickly into Weight of our Will after he appears.
  
• Removed screen darkening effect from Weight of our Will (QCB+PP).
  
• Fixed skeleton voice lines getting cut off when Marie blocks hits or performs a pushblock.
  
• Made numerous improvements to the flow of how Hilgard performs his win pose, and fixed a bug where he could fly away off screen during it.
  
• Fixed an issue where Marie could cancel into a Blockbuster on the frame she is hit with an armor breaking move, when using Marie Go 'Round [H].
  
• Fixed a bug where Air Throw wouldn't kill opponents unless the first three hits did enough damage to kill.
  
• Adjusted crouching hurtboxes during idle, block, and hitstun to be slightly larger.
  (Ms. Fortune's sHP x L Fiber confirm is now universal again)
  
• Fixed a bug where Marie couldn't get as close to walls when dashing into them compared to other characters.
  
• Fixed a bug where using Repetitive Skeleton Impact (QCF+KK) with Marie's back too close to the wall could cause some odd behavior on larger characters.
  
• Fixed a bug where the second hit of jHP could activate Undizzy unexpectedly if the first hit started a chain and filled the victim's Undizzy bar.
  
• Fixed a bug where Dust Bunny could be oddly rotated during its (not so secret) win pose.
  
• Fixed a bug where Marie could trigger the Dust Bunny to fly forward with cLK from unintended ranges.
  
• Carpel Pummel (QCF+PP) now has higher input priority over Weight of our Will (QCB+PP).
  
• Marie Go 'Round [L] (QCB+LP) no longer causes preblock.
  
• Fixed a bug where Marie did not make a noise when landing during a sliding knockdown.
  
• Fixed a visual bug where two versions of Marie could show up rarely if dashing towards the opponent after dashing away from them.
  
• Fixed secret bugs for secret behavior of a certain standing heavy normal.

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(Build version 3.6.3)

Today's update aims to address some networking bugs that were discovered after yesterday's Steam Client update released, which prevented some players from playing online.

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CHANGES

• Fixed a bug where some players would not be able to connect to one another, and would disconnect as soon as the round started.
  
• Adjusted logic for displaying connection bars and their colors (for Steam only), which are present at round start for online fights.
  
  • Green bars are direct connections, where the number of bars filled represent different methods of forming a direct connection.
    
  • Yellow bars are relay server connections used as a fallback when Steam can't establish a direct connection.
    
  • A single red bar means an error has occurred.
• Added a new launch option, -disableHueShift, for disabling all rainbow color changing effects. This affects Double palette #19 & Marie palette #29. (-disableRainbowDouble still works and should have the same affect.)
  
• Fixed a bug where loading screen text was not translated to match the chosen language.

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(Version 3.6.2)

Hey everyone,

This update is focused on addressing some issues discovered in Marie's initial Alpha release, and also brings Marie's Alpha to Linux and Steam Deck platforms. Thanks for your patience!

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• Adjusted vsync settings to fix an issue where some players were experiencing performance and screen tearing issues in the Beta mode.
  
• Attempted a fix for an issue preventing Beta mode from launching on Windows 7/8.1.

• Reduced blockstun on jLK, jLP, jMK, and jMP.
  
• Added missing chip damage on Marie Go 'Round (QCB + P) [M] and [H], and Carpel Pummel (QCF + PP).
  
• Carpel Pummel's giant fist no longer clashes with projectiles, losing its active hitbox.
  
• Fixed a bug where the armor frames were not displayed correctly for Marie Go 'Round (QCB + HP) in the frame data bar when Attack Data was set to "Advanced" in training mode.
  
• Fixed a bug where Marie would get stuck in her summoning animation as an assist if Hilgard was attacked and defeated before he could finish certain animations.
  
• Fixed a bug where Marie could get stuck in her commanding pose if the hand from Repetitive Skeleton Impact's (QCF + KK) grabbed opponents with 1 life.
  
• Fixed a bug where Marie was not considered to be in a counter hit state after throwing the orb from Weight of our Will (QCB + PP).
  
• Fixed a bug where the second hit of jHP and sHP could trigger a burst in the middle of a chain if the first hit caused the Drama bar (Undizzy) to fill up to 240 or above.
  
• Fixed cMP, sHK, and jMK having lower than intended metergain.
  
• Fixed jHP granting slightly more meter than sHP.
  
• Reduced jLP metergain.
  
• Reduced Hilgard's Haymaker (QCF + K) metergain.
  
• Added metergain to Hilgard's Howl (QCB + K), since it was zero before.
  
• When an opponent blocks Hilgard's attacks (QCF or QCB + K), they gain bonus meter.
  
• Fixed Marie Go 'Round (QCB + P) [M] strength granting far more meter than the [H] strength.
  
• Suction Obstruction (QCF + LP + LK), Ground Throw, and Air Throw now correctly grant meter.
  
• Fixed a bug where Marie can could cancel the start up of JHP into JHK before JHP hit, if bones from a previous JHP were still visible and hitting an opponent.

Thank you to everyone who has been reporting bugs so we can get them fixed in a timely manner. We hope you're all enjoying Marie so far!

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(Build version 3.6.1)


10/20/023 [UPDATE]
2nd Attempt at fix for an issue preventing Beta mode from launching on Windows 7/8.1. No new version number.

The Skullgirl herself is finally here - Marie is now playable in her Alpha state for Season Pass holders!

NOTE: The Linux version of Marie's Alpha is not available just yet due to some final bug fixing and polishing that is needed for that build. As soon as that build is ready, Marie will be available on Linux too. Thanks for your patience.

In classic Skullgirls tradition, Marie will arrive in an unfinished state with a few work-in-progress "sketchy" frames. As mentioned in our "State of the Game" post shared earlier, Marie is much further along compared to previous characters due to her fully releasing on Skullgirls Mobile first before the Steam alpha.

Read more details about her release and other changes below!

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Marie has all of her moves, voice acting, and sound effects in this build. Some of her moves still don't have fully cleaned up frames, but everything should be pretty functional. We expect she will need additional tuning, bug fixing, and balancing just like every other character during their Alpha period.

You can report bugs in our official Discord, or our official forum in the Marie section.

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/skullgirls

Skullheart Forums: https://skullheart.com/

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Characters in their Alpha phase are currently only available to Season 1 Pass holders. If you don't own the Season 1 Pass DLC, you won't be able to use Marie yet. You can pick up the Season 1 Pass here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1557981/Skullgirls_Season_1_Pass

Once you have the Season 1 Pass DLC, launch the game in BETA mode by pressing the green PLAY button on Skullgirls 2nd Encore from your Steam library page, then selecting "Skullgirls Beta (Marie Alpha)". You can also launch the game in BETA mode by navigating to the in-game Options menu, and pressing "Switch To Beta".

In BETA mode, you can pick Marie on the character select screen as normal!

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Once Marie's Alpha phase is over, her individual character DLC will go live in Early Access on the Steam store. This will allow you to play Marie during her Early Access Beta phase without owning the Season 1 Pass.

For Marie, we expect her Alpha phase to end and her Early Access (Steam only) phase to start once all of her animations are fully complete and colored. We're currently targeting December 2023 for this date.

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While we were originally targeting December 2023 for Marie's full release on all platforms including consoles, it is likely that her release will be pushed back to sometime early in the new year of 2024.

The finalized version of Marie with all her bells and whistles needs to be submitted to all console platforms much earlier than December 1st in order to have a chance at releasing before the holidays, since most platform support teams will be unavailable. It's very unlikely that all of her art will be fully finalized by that date, so Q1 2024 is our anticipated release date at this time.

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You may have noticed a lot of buzz about balance changes on our official forums or in various online communities. The balance patch discussion is humming along and we're making changes as we speak to prepare the first build that will contain them.

We don't have enough of these changes ready at this time for a substantial first balance patch build, so we're going to wait a little bit longer until we have more changes to release all at once. You can expect to see changes start to arrive before the end of the month.

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Marie

• Added Marie as a playable character.
  
• Added 19 color palettes for Marie, with many more to arrive in future updates.
  (... Note that since palette 7 is unlocked by completing her story mode, it cannot be obtained at this time, and is just a duplicate of her original palette for now.)
  
• Added Marie's stage, Hilgard's Castle.
  
• Added Marie's stage music, "All That Remains" composed by Darren Malley.

Other

• [BETA ONLY] Adjusted visual effects and lighting when characters are impacted by palette adjusting VFX, such as Parasoul's fire effect, Annie's galaxy space dust effect, Robo-Fortune's electrification effect, Black Dahlia's freeze effect, etc. Flickering lights involved with these effects should be less distracting, and character's themselves are no longer impacted by stage lighting conditions.
  
  
  
  
• When declining a match in Quick Match, or recently finishing a match with a player, you will no longer match with that player again for a few minutes.
  
• When kicking a player from a lobby, kicked players can no longer join the lobby again immediately after.
  
• [BETA ONLY] Integrated some previously unused voice lines for older characters when fighting against Marie. Some are used for boss Marie, playable Marie, or both.
  
• [BETA ONLY] Fixed a bug where Black Dahlia would not flinch when getting punched in the face by Cerebella during pummel horse. She's tough, but not THAT tough.
  
• Adjusted the position of the timer on character select when playing online.

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(Build version 3.6.0)

Hey everyone,

It’s time for an update on all the Skullgirls projects we’ve got cooking currently, specifically some details on Marie’s upcoming releases!

Here’s a preview of what to expect below:

• Skullgirls Mobile
  
• Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Playable Alpha
  
• Skullgirls 2nd Encore - Full Release

• Balance Adjustments
  
• Story Mode Updates

• Skullgirls Championship Series 2024
  
• Eighty Sixed Merch
  
• Skullgirls x Webtoon

Enough intro! IT’S SHOWTIME!

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Have you been following our daily Marie development posts on our socials? No? Why not?! There’s over 100 days of behind the scenes animations, gameplay, concept art, development insights, and more for you to read up on! Find all our socials here.

Updates on our socials are great and all, but I’m sure you really want to know one thing: When is Marie being released?

For every character in the Season 1 Pass, we’ve been experimenting with different development schedules to see what works best.

• ANNIE released first on Skullgirls Mobile, then went straight to Full Release a few months later on 2nd Encore.​
  
• UMBRELLA had a full Alpha, Early Access and Full Release in 2nd Encore before she released on Mobile.​
  
• BLACK DAHLIA started her Alpha very early, followed by her SGM release, then her Full Release in 2nd Encore.​
  
• MARIE will launch first in SGM, followed by her Alpha, then her 2nd Encore Full Release.​

As you can see for Marie we’re going to be running a similar development timeline as we did with Annie.

Why are we doing it this way? If you recall from way back when we developed Annie, Skullgirls Mobile characters require less overall development time than 2nd Encore. This is because they require significantly fewer completed animations and general attack data compared to their more technical cousins in 2nd Encore.

Over the course of the Season 1 Pass we have found that it makes the most sense for us to prioritize the Skullgirls Mobile character releases, then switch fully over to Skullgirls 2nd Encore where we can give their playable Alpha the full attention it deserves.

However, if you’ve been following our socials, or visited our booth at Evo this year, you’ll have seen that plenty of work has been done on Marie for 2nd Encore! Skullgirls 2nd Encore and Skullgirls Mobile run on such similar engines and pipelines that we actually implement everything at a basic level in 2nd Encore first, then port that work to Skullgirls Mobile where it is further tuned and polished.

This means that even though some parts of Marie are much further along than Black Dahlia or Umbrella were in their early Alphas, other parts are not developed enough to be released as a publicly playable Alpha.

With that said, here is our current plan for Marie’s rollout:

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Marie is currently planned to release in September on Skullgirls Mobile!

In addition to Marie, we’ll be ramping up the Skullgirls Mobile reveals in the coming weeks with trailers and posts about all of the new stuff coming in the 6.0 update. Be sure to keep an eye on our socials for all the latest!

Download the game today to get yourself ready for her big release! If it’s your first time playing, or you haven’t played since before 5.4 released there’s a big free package for you too!

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A time honored tradition in Skullgirls is the playable Alpha! During this phase of development, an unfinished build of Marie will be playable on the Beta branch of Skullgirls 2nd Encore of Steam. This build may feature unfinished ‘sketchy’ animation frames, and much of her combat data will be untuned.

This playable Alpha phase allows players to get their hands on Marie early and give feedback on how she’s shaping up. We’ll be releasing frequent updates to the Alpha with new art and gameplay tuning as time goes on.

The Marie Alpha will start sometime soon after Marie’s release in Skullgirls Mobile. Stay tuned for more info!

What will be included in the Alpha:

• Marie will be partially complete, with some temporary art and not completely tuned gameplay.​
  
• A partial set of palettes.​
  
• A new stage (with music!) - Hilgard’s Castle.​
  
• Additional features will be added to the Alpha over time.​

The playable Alpha is exclusive to Season 1 Pass holders on Steam, so pick up yours today!

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Once Marie is fully completed, she will be released on all systems roughly simultaneously.

We’re aiming to release Marie around mid December 2023. For full transparency, there is a chance this date will slip into 2024, but for now that is the date we are targeting.

Full Release will come with all the usual bells and whistles:

• Marie will be fully complete!​
  
• The new Stage - Hilgard’s Castle - will be fully complete with final music.​
  
• A brand new story mode for Marie.​
  
• Marie will be available as stand-alone DLC separate from the Season 1 Pass.​
  
• Final Marie balance pass.​
  
• A full set of 30+ palettes.​
  
• Character tutorials.​
  
• A new alternate voice pack.​

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We want to give the other characters in Skullgirls some attention too, and so we’re planning to do a general balance adjustment for the rest of the cast in the near future!

As we mentioned in a previous State of the Game post, juggling multiple console releases, character development with Marie, plus additional general balance adjustments has been a challenge. We’re excited to finally dig into this in the coming months.

We are currently planning to start general balance adjustments at the same time Marie’s Alpha starts, or shortly after. We’ll announce more details about these adjustments in the near future.

Thank you for your patience and feedback!

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When Marie gets her full release she will come with her own Story Mode that delves deep into her relationship with the Skull Heart. After Marie’s story mode is released all of the Season 1 Pass character story modes will be updated with full voice acting in an independent update.

The full voice update will not be until after Marie’s release because we are still organizing recording sessions for the LARGE returning cast that we need to voice the myriad of characters that appear across Skullgirls 2nd Encore’s 18 Story Modes.

Also please note that due to ongoing actors strikes in the US there is a possibility that any story mode recordings may be very significantly delayed. Marie’s English combat voice over will not be affected as it has already been completed.

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Aside from direct updates to the games themselves, we have lots of other Skullgirls projects in the works!

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During our Evo 2023 Community Showcase, we were finally able to announce the return of the SKULLGIRLS CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES!

We’re partnering with a completely new production team, and the SGCS is going to be bigger than ever!

We’re excited to share more news in the future, but take it from us that 2024 is going to be BIG for competitive Skullgirls!

Be sure to follow our socials for updates about these events!

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Are you looking for official Skullgirls merch and apparel? The fine folks at Eighty Sixed have you covered!

They already have an expansive Skullgirls collection available, but there’s even more new additions on the horizon!

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The Skullgirls series on Webtoon has released 20 episodes so far. Due to some scheduling challenges, production of each new chapter has taken longer than expected. We’re currently on an extended hiatus while we build up a backlog of episodes so that when the series returns we will have plenty of episodes ready to go without interruption.

When the series does return it will also come with a Webtoon Fast Pass, meaning everyone gets the latest episode for free every week, or you can spend Fast Pass Coins to read three episodes ahead.

We can’t give a firm date yet, but we’re aiming for a return in September!

{LINK REMOVED}Catch up on all the previous episodes here before our big return here or search for Skullgirls on the Webtoon app!

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That’s a wrap for today!

We’re aiming to release these State of the Game posts more frequently going forward just to generally keep everyone apprised on the goings on in the world of Skullgirls.

Thanks as always for your support, and we’re excited to get Marie into everyone’s hands as soon as possible! Keep an eye out for those updates in the very near future!

Skullgirls Content and Revisions Update [6/26/2023]

As part of a global Skullgirls content update, we have adjusted several art assets in Skullgirls 2nd Encore and the Digital Art Compendium on all platforms. You can find the full list of changes in this update here: Skullgirls 2nd Encore Content Updates Notes

You can read the full details and rationale behind these changes here: SKULLGIRLS CONTENT UPDATES & REVISIONS

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(Build version 3.5.13)

Hey everyone,

We're happy to announce that the Digital Art Compendium & Soundtrack are getting updates today, releasing a lot of new content related to Black Dahlia. We know this usually comes out when a character gets their full retail release, and we apologize for the delay. But there's so much new content to enjoy!

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• Character Art, which includes a wealth of behind-the-scenes move concept sketches.
  
• Character Poster
  
• Bunny Burrow 2D Stage Art + Development Concepts
  
• Exported Frames - Nearly 3,000 individual frames!
  
• Story Mode Art - New Fullscreen Cinematics & Talking Heads

• Black Dahlia Stream Art
  
• Umbrella Stream Art
  
• Valentine Redesign Announcement Art

• Bookie App Icon
  
• Dahlia Relic Shard Icon
  
• Lots of new mail banners
  
• Lots of new Relic images, including Dahlia's Character Relic!

• "Down The Rabbit Hole" track added.