Awesome news everyone: the super slick, anime-styled beat’em’up, Skull Girls, is nearly finished and ready for its PC release. Those heathens over on the consoles have had this (by all reports) excellent fighter for over a year now while we’ve been looking on in slack-jawed envy. Now, though, we’re just one short month away from its release.
Developer Lab Zero Games announced via Twitter that the game will be released on 22 August.
#Skullgirls arrives on PC on August 22nd! Pre-orders begin on August 1st! https://t.co/n9kQIFyTBy— Skullgirls (@Skullgirls) July 12, 2013
Part of the reason it’s taken this long to see a port to the PC is a legal mess which surrounded the original publisher, Autumn Games. Shortly after the release of Skullgirls in April last year Autumn Games was hit with a lawsuit about one of their other titles, Def Jam Rapstar. The cost of the legal battle meant that Autumn Games allowed their contract with Skullgirls developer, then-titled Reverge Labs, to lapse. All the staff were let go from the studio.
Not to let that knock them down, the team reformed as Lab Zero Games and were granted permission by Autumn Games to continue development of Skullgirls despite the publisher being able to lend them support. That’s why, in February, we saw the studio launch an Indiegogo campaign to fund the creation of new characters.
Separate to the crowdfunding campaign, Lab Zero were able to secure a publishing deal with Marvelous AQL to bring the game to PC.
When the game does launch in August, PC players will also be in line to get the new DLC characters funded in the Indiegogo campaign, though they won’t be available at launch as their development’s not yet complete.
If you preorder the game from the 1 August then you’ll receive a costume pack that adds five newly-coloured costumes to each of the eight core characters.
We’re also receiving a couple of enhancements over the console release: Lobby Play, All Play, spectator mode, an art gallery, and Steam trading card support have all been added to the game.