- Joined
- May 5, 2017
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- Los Angeles, CA
- Website
- www.hiddenvariable.com
It’s that time again - our preview of what to expect from Skullgirls in 2024!
With the SG2E Season 1 Pass winding down, we are stepping back to figure out the ideal path forward for feature development across all platforms. This means that we’ll be shaking up our usual new content cadence a little bit, but we’re excited to share what we’ll have in store!
Read on for more details!
2023 RECAP
In our 2023 Roadmap post, we talked about a LOT of features that we had planned. While not everything on that list made it into Skullgirls Mobile last year, before we dive into the 2024 Roadmap, we wanted to provide a quick recap of all that we accomplished over the past year:
NEW CHARACTER
For a more thorough trip down memory lane, we recommend browsing through our Update Notes to reflect on the year that was.
Before moving on, we all remember last year’s Roadmap – so, in the interest of accountability, how’d we do?
Not too shabby! Now, on to 2024!
NOTE: Obviously if we listed EVERYTHING we’re talking about/considering, this list would be 100+ items long - this is simply meant to reflect some of the things near the top of the pile.
Let’s dig into these in a bit more detail!
COMING SOON
Backstage Pass Content
Prize Fight Streak Pity
IN DEVELOPMENT
IN DEVELOPMENT means something we’re targeting for 2024.
Guest Stars (?!!)
Early draft of Minette's idle pose.
Rough animation of one of Minette's Guest Star attacks.
IN CONCEPT
IN CONCEPT means things we are in the process of exploring, which could make an appearance sooner, but likely won’t see the light of day until 2025.
New Origin Stories
MARIE DLC
Marie’s DLC is scheduled to launch on all platforms including her Story Mode, stage/music track, alternate VO pack, 30 palettes, and more!
ADDITIONAL VO
In addition to what’s already been released (including free bonus voice packs for Umbrella and Black Dahlia), there is still a significant amount of VO that we were planning to include in the Season Pass that has not been added yet, including:
As it turns out, the logistics for all of these has proven to be a bit more involved than we had originally anticipated. As such, in order to ensure that everything is done to the quality level that we (and the community) expects, we unfortunately are NOT planning to release this content in 2024.
Nonetheless, while the timetable isn’t what we originally hoped for, we take our commitments seriously, and we are still planning to release it in 2025. As always, we appreciate your patience, support, and understanding!
FREE SGM PALETTES
As noted earlier, Skullgirls Mobile will continue to get new palettes every month. While the release timing is a little up in the air, we are planning to provide all of those palettes FOR FREE to every Skullgirls 2nd Encore player. In fact, Marie’s full release just around the corner will include new palettes for Robo-Fortune and Beowulf!
NEW FEATURES / CONTENT / CHARACTERS
Although we don’t currently have news on what to expect on this front at this time - just know that we are still intending to support both the console and mobile versions of Skullgirls for years to come. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months!
SKULLGIRLS CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
If you haven’t heard, the Skullgirls Championship Series 2024 is fully underway!
Compete in online regional events to qualify as one of the 8 lucky competitors to be flown out to Combo Breaker 2024 to compete in the Grand Finals!
Check out start.gg/sgcs2024 and be sure to register for one of many events in your area! Interested in hosting an SGCS point earning event? Check out the site for details - it’s easier than you might think!
LIVE EVENTS & GIVEAWAYS
We are currently planning to attend two live events this year – Combo Breaker (Chicago area, May 24-26) and Evo (Las Vegas, Jul 19-21). If you’re planning to attend, be sure to swing by the Skullgirls booth to meet us in person and score all kinds of FREE booth exclusive giveaways and prizes. We hope to see you there!
OFFICIAL SKULLGIRLS TIKTOK
The official Skullgirls TikTok recently hit 300k followers, and we’re well on our way to our next major milestone - 500k! When we hit it, we plan to celebrate in style with a one-time only generous in-game gift for EVERY player! Don’t delay, give us a follow today!
ONLINE GIVEAWAYS
As many of you know, two of our intrepid team members stream regularly on Twitch and are known to give away FREE STUFF every 3 weeks or so. If you don’t already, be sure to follow JuJuBlu (Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok) and TheAlmightyBones (Twitch, Twitter) so you don’t miss out!
WRAPPING UP
That should do it for our 2024 Roadmap! If there’s anything in particular you are hoping to see in 2024 (either as a part of the items mentioned above or something entirely new), don’t be shy about sharing them below - we’re always listening!
Thanks once again for all of your support - we hope to see you all in game, on stream, or even in person!
<3 MightyZug (Charley) and all of us at Hidden Variable:
AlmightyBones
bawblawblaw
Cellsai
Cleverfox
demastte2
DIEGENDO
geesengchoo
Genasi
Grimlock9
jennygenius
JuJuBlu
Kirakiraru
kromenak
Liam
NisNis
Orenjii
Pen Stroke Pony
Raheelx
Ravax
Sam Handwich
sixteenbits
With the SG2E Season 1 Pass winding down, we are stepping back to figure out the ideal path forward for feature development across all platforms. This means that we’ll be shaking up our usual new content cadence a little bit, but we’re excited to share what we’ll have in store!
Read on for more details!
2023 RECAP
In our 2023 Roadmap post, we talked about a LOT of features that we had planned. While not everything on that list made it into Skullgirls Mobile last year, before we dive into the 2024 Roadmap, we wanted to provide a quick recap of all that we accomplished over the past year:
NEW CHARACTER
- We launched Marie with all the bells, whistles, bones, dust bunnies, 11 NEW FIGHTERS, Daily Events, and Prize Fights that come along with her!
- The monthly Backstage Pass provides new ways to earn more free stuff (including a chance at 2 brand new Fighters every month). Independent of Marie, 18 new Fighters have been added since last July, with more to come!
- In addition, the Backstage Pass has given us an opportunity to showcase a handful of the incredibly talented artists in our community!
- JUL 2023 - “THE CHASE” (Robyn Haley)
- AUG 2023 - “SHOWDOWN” (Robyn Haley)
- SEP 2023 - “TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL” (Robyn Haley)
- OCT 2023 - “ SCARING IS CARING” (minawa)
- NOV 2023 - “THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX” (mizudeppou_3776)
- DEC 2023 - “TREEMENDOUSLY COZY” (Wiirdo & Pasteldot)
- JAN 2024 - “A FORCE TO RECKON WITH” (ZeroToSix06)
- FEB 2024 - “LOVESICK” (Sunsunny31)
- MAR 2024 - “THAT’S A SPICY MEATBALL” (petyankomanju)
- Everyone has a plan until NO MERCY kicks you in the face. Parallel Realms introduced a brand new challenge mode that puts your collection to the test against an escalating set of daunting opponents for every skill level.
- We added Recruitment Nodes to Parallel Realms to give players a chance to try out brand new Fighters in a pre–leveled up state.
- As a first step towards more personalization and creative expression, we added Avatars which can be collected in a variety of ways (including for FREE with every new update!)
- We added ways for you to See Move Stats more easily and Sell All Moves from the Results screen to keep your Collections tidy!
- We added a handy XP Boost slot to make it easier to ensure you always have it active when you need it.
- By popular demand, we rebalanced Rift Battle Catalysts to help refresh the meta.
- We added Holodeck Mayhem to help you level up your fighters more quickly (on special occasions).
- We added failsafes to remind you when you have a Fighter without moves equipped to address a common complaint and help embolden players to use the Loadout system more aggressively.
For a more thorough trip down memory lane, we recommend browsing through our Update Notes to reflect on the year that was.
Before moving on, we all remember last year’s Roadmap – so, in the interest of accountability, how’d we do?
Not too shabby! Now, on to 2024!
DISCLAIMERS
Just like our 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018 Preview posts, the features below are going to be discussed in very broad terms. This is intentional. While we have clear goals, the route we take to achieve them often changes once we sink our teeth into the task at hand (and a little air of mystery is nice from time to time).2024 ROADMAP
We’re going to be following a Roadmap structure similar to what we did last year:- COMING SOON means something you can expect to see in our next 1-2 updates.
- IN DEVELOPMENT means something we’re targeting for 2024.
- IN CONCEPT means things we are in the process of exploring, which could make an appearance sooner, but likely won’t see the light of day until 2025.
NOTE: Obviously if we listed EVERYTHING we’re talking about/considering, this list would be 100+ items long - this is simply meant to reflect some of the things near the top of the pile.
Let’s dig into these in a bit more detail!
COMING SOON
Backstage Pass Content
- OK, this isn’t strictly new, but just wanted to lead things off by renewing our commitment to release brand new Fighters every month!
- Everything we talk about below will be additive to what we’ve been providing month to month!
Prize Fight Streak Pity
- Losing your Prize Fight streak is awful. Like “maybe I should do something else” awful.
- Soon, every Prize Fight will have one free streak restoration per instance AND the Theonite cost for restoring your streak afterwards will be nominal (no more than 25 Theonite) as opposed to scaling up based on your streak.
- Hopefully this will make achieving those Prize Fight milestones more engaging and less stressful!
- Skullgirls has always been blessed with incredible art, both created internally and by so many of you in the community.
- We plan to add support for an in-game gallery that will allow you to unlock and collect both classic and brand new high resolution art that can also unlock stat bonuses for certain Fighters!
- More details coming soon!
- UPDATE: Sorry for the confusing language here. A "Fighter Tuning Pass" means we'll be going through the cast and doing several balance adjustments. This will be free in a future update and you will not need to pay for it like the All Access Backstage Pass. We'll use clearer language in future with changes like this!
Check out the 5.3 Update Notes for an example of our last set of Balance Adjustments for an idea of what we'll be doing.
- YOU get an S-tier and YOU get an S-tier! Every Fighter deserves a glow up every now and again.
- Who do you think is most deserving this year? Let us know in the comments!
IN DEVELOPMENT
IN DEVELOPMENT means something we’re targeting for 2024.
Guest Stars (?!!)
- Implementing a brand new Skullgirls character is a massive undertaking that takes a LONG time. As such, we’re going to be trying something a little different in 2024– Guest Stars!
- Guest Stars are BRAND NEW CHARACTERS that can be assigned to any Fighter. During combat you can call your Guest Stars to assist with a special attack or action.
- The hope is that these characters will be able to be made available at a much more rapid pace than full characters which will help us bring more of the roster to life more rapidly than we have prior (and will help us gauge popularity to inform who the next full character(s) should be when the time comes).
- The final roster of Guest Stars is still under wraps, but - to give you an idea of what we have planned - behold some early concepts of an Assist from the hardest working Dagonian in Little Innsmouth - Minette!
Early draft of Minette's idle pose.
Rough animation of one of Minette's Guest Star attacks.
- Disclaimer: As always, all in-progress art and animations are subject to change.
- Stay tuned for more details on other Minette moves and who else will be included in the first batch of Guest Stars in the months to come!
- NOTE: Guest Stars are currently planned for SGM only, but there’s always a chance they may make their way to SG2E one day!
- In light of all of the modes and features we’ve added (in addition the new features we have in store), it’s about time that we updated the Main Menu (and other aspects of our front end UI) to better support it!
- Expect a layout that’s a little more consistently laid out and easier to understand for newer players.
- We’re also interested in exploring ways in which you could customize your main menu to feature your favorite characters. More details to come!
- Fight replays are currently used internally as a development/debug tool. Now we want to bring that functionality to everyone! Why? Several reasons come to mind!
- See how your opponent beat your Prize Fight or Rift Node Defense Team
- Share an epic, down to the wire performance you’re particularly proud of
- See how other players cleared a particularly challenging Story Mode node
- Share “in game videos” of common combos using certain moves to help players better grasp how best to use their favorite characters
- Find a weird combat bug? Rather than trying your darndest to explain exactly what you saw, just share the Replay and we’ll be able to reproduce (and hopefully fix) the issue much more quickly!
- Hopefully this can help make it easier to share knowledge and memorable moments with the community and progressing players.
- Put down your pitchforks! Extinguish your torches! A key pillar for our full suite of future Guilds features are in the works!
- Guilds are a pretty massive undertaking for us as a small team (hence why they’ve been COMING SOON for so long), but we’re planning on taking an iterative approach that will build up the feature set prior to a full fledged system launch.
- For this first MVP version, we’ll be focusing on the process of creating a Guild, establishing a sense of in-game community for your Guild, and giving you and your Guild mates things to accomplish together.
- We look forward to this as the start of the next phase of the Skullgirls Mobile experience!
- Did you know that PRECISION hits are not only guaranteed to CRIT but also will not trigger Signature Abilities? If not, surprise! You’re not alone!
- While being able to check on modifiers in-game via the Pause Screen is handy, we want players to be able to properly understand a Signature Ability or Modifier even when not in the middle of a match.
IN CONCEPT
IN CONCEPT means things we are in the process of exploring, which could make an appearance sooner, but likely won’t see the light of day until 2025.
New Origin Stories
- We’ve wanted to dig back into these FOR SO LONG. Perhaps the time is nigh?
- In the name of complete transparency, while we really are excited to dig back into Origin Stories, this would be a long shot for 2024.
- Foundations are great, but buildings (Guildings?) are better!
- We look forward to leveraging the Guild feature set we’re planning to tackle this year to add more collaborative and competitive features in the years to come!
- Now that we’ve whet your appetite with Parallel Realms, we have many more ideas for new interesting modes and challenges to conquer!
- Word on the street is that some Characters could use a tune up (looking at you Big Band).
- Several characters from the original roster would benefit from some additional attention to ensure their SM/BBs, modifiers, and core moveset are maximally viable given the current state of the game.
SKULLGIRLS 2ND ENCORE
With the SG2E Season 1 Pass winding down, the obvious question is - what comes next? While it’s tempting to dive right into a Season 2 Pass - we’ve instead opted to pause for a moment to step back and recalibrate our efforts a bit. What does that mean exactly?MARIE DLC
Marie’s DLC is scheduled to launch on all platforms including her Story Mode, stage/music track, alternate VO pack, 30 palettes, and more!
ADDITIONAL VO
In addition to what’s already been released (including free bonus voice packs for Umbrella and Black Dahlia), there is still a significant amount of VO that we were planning to include in the Season Pass that has not been added yet, including:
- ANNIE ALTERNATE VOICE PACK (English)
- SEASON PASS CHARACTER STORY MODE VO (English)
- SEASON PASS CHARACTER COMBAT VO (Japanese)
As it turns out, the logistics for all of these has proven to be a bit more involved than we had originally anticipated. As such, in order to ensure that everything is done to the quality level that we (and the community) expects, we unfortunately are NOT planning to release this content in 2024.
Nonetheless, while the timetable isn’t what we originally hoped for, we take our commitments seriously, and we are still planning to release it in 2025. As always, we appreciate your patience, support, and understanding!
FREE SGM PALETTES
As noted earlier, Skullgirls Mobile will continue to get new palettes every month. While the release timing is a little up in the air, we are planning to provide all of those palettes FOR FREE to every Skullgirls 2nd Encore player. In fact, Marie’s full release just around the corner will include new palettes for Robo-Fortune and Beowulf!
NEW FEATURES / CONTENT / CHARACTERS
Although we don’t currently have news on what to expect on this front at this time - just know that we are still intending to support both the console and mobile versions of Skullgirls for years to come. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months!
IN OTHER NEWS
SKULLGIRLS CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES
If you haven’t heard, the Skullgirls Championship Series 2024 is fully underway!
Compete in online regional events to qualify as one of the 8 lucky competitors to be flown out to Combo Breaker 2024 to compete in the Grand Finals!
Check out start.gg/sgcs2024 and be sure to register for one of many events in your area! Interested in hosting an SGCS point earning event? Check out the site for details - it’s easier than you might think!
LIVE EVENTS & GIVEAWAYS
We are currently planning to attend two live events this year – Combo Breaker (Chicago area, May 24-26) and Evo (Las Vegas, Jul 19-21). If you’re planning to attend, be sure to swing by the Skullgirls booth to meet us in person and score all kinds of FREE booth exclusive giveaways and prizes. We hope to see you there!
OFFICIAL SKULLGIRLS TIKTOK
The official Skullgirls TikTok recently hit 300k followers, and we’re well on our way to our next major milestone - 500k! When we hit it, we plan to celebrate in style with a one-time only generous in-game gift for EVERY player! Don’t delay, give us a follow today!
ONLINE GIVEAWAYS
As many of you know, two of our intrepid team members stream regularly on Twitch and are known to give away FREE STUFF every 3 weeks or so. If you don’t already, be sure to follow JuJuBlu (Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok) and TheAlmightyBones (Twitch, Twitter) so you don’t miss out!
WRAPPING UP
That should do it for our 2024 Roadmap! If there’s anything in particular you are hoping to see in 2024 (either as a part of the items mentioned above or something entirely new), don’t be shy about sharing them below - we’re always listening!
Thanks once again for all of your support - we hope to see you all in game, on stream, or even in person!
<3 MightyZug (Charley) and all of us at Hidden Variable:
AlmightyBones
bawblawblaw
Cellsai
Cleverfox
demastte2
DIEGENDO
geesengchoo
Genasi
Grimlock9
jennygenius
JuJuBlu
Kirakiraru
kromenak
Liam
NisNis
Orenjii
Pen Stroke Pony
Raheelx
Ravax
Sam Handwich
sixteenbits
Last edited by a moderator:
I’d hope you take the approach similar to Marvel Snap’s recent Valentine's buff and make these stat boosts temporarily while those specific pieces of art are being featured. Otherwise you’ll create this FOMO path or wind up closer to some P2W territory. 
. I was one of them who suggested it as an addition to the pass but giving 1 free restore to everyone is great.