#not trying to make a habit of uploading music from in-game screen recordings but i need these tracks on my blog now

[skyeet-the-writer]

The Love Among Us

Chapter 1-- I’d Never Snitch On Daddy

so i haven’t seen many corpse husband x reader stories on here, so i decided to upload one myself. i’ve been watching jacksepticeye’s among us videos and when i heard corpse talk for the first time, i was like, “hol up” and now i’ve been obsessed with him. also, go stream his music on spotify, it’s amazing. enjoy! x. 

 corpse husband x female!reader

summary: while playing among us, y/n watches corpse kill felix in o2. when his body is reported, however, she doesn’t tell who killed him. 

 word count: ~3.6k

warnings: swearing, mentions of death (not real death), mentions of murder (not real murder)

EDIT: before i wrote this and after i published it, i did not know that corpse did not like to be referred to as “daddy”. had i known this, i would have not even thought of posting this. and since i know now, i won’t refer to him as such in the future. thank you. (10/19/2020)

EDIT 2: this is the first part to my corpse x reader series. i will be adding chapters as we go!

next>

4 rounds before the incident

“I was in coms with PJ!” Sean exclaims. 

“He is doing the liar voice!” Felix shouts with a laugh. 

“I’m not,” Sean tries to say, but everyone talks over him and the voting time ends. Everyone left alive, though it was only four people, had all voted for him and he yells at them as he gets ejected. 

stinky was not the imposter

2 imposters remain

The round ends and everyone unmutes themselves. 

“Lizzie, you saw Felix kill me and you did nothing!” Roomie yells as soon as the round ends and the imposters are revealed. 

“Yeah, because I was the other imposter.”

“Oh. Okay, well that makes sense.”

Everyone laughs and Ken starts the round again. 

“Wait, can I invite y/n to play? She’s doing her twenty-four-hour stream and she just finished playing Monopoly with Mark, Bob, and Wade,” says Lizzie, looking down at her phone as they all appear back in the waiting room. 

“Yes,” Corpse blurts out and there are a few laughs and chuckles. 

“You were quick to answer, Corpse,” Sean teases. 

“Shut up,” Corpse mumbles and there are even more laughs. 

Lizzie smiles and taps into her phone. “I’m gonna invite her.”

~

“I can’t believe that you actually made that deal, y/n,” Wade is telling you after ending the second round of Monopoly that you’ve played with them. 

You smile and cross your legs on your chair. “Look, I was going bankrupt and it seemed good at the time. Besides, Mark was going to win anyway, he owned half of the board.” Your phone buzzes beside you on your desk and you pick it up. “Lizzie texted me.” There’s a sound effect that plays in your headset and you look up at your screen and smile. “Thanks to _lorieplays _for donating a hundred dollars, that means a lot. Thank you so much.”

“Do you want to play another round?” Marks asks. 

You shake your head, reading the text from your friend in England. “No, I don’t want to lose to you again.” You laugh. “Nah, Lizzie wants me to play Among Us with her and a few others. It was fun playing with you guys.”

“It was even though you took all of my money,” Bob snaps. 

You laugh. “Yeah, yeah. See you guys later.”

“Bye,” says Mark.

“See y--” Wade begins but you cut him off when you disconnect from the call. 

“Oops.” You put a hand over your mouth and laugh. “Sorry, Wade. Okay.” You straighten up and glance over everything, making sure it’s all working properly. “I have to pee and I think my roommate ordered pizza, so we’ll be back after this short break. Enjoy this live feed of my pet rats.” You giggle and switch the stream over to a view of your two rats in their cage where you have a camera set up. You take your headset off and head out of your recording room. 

Every two months, you have a twenty-four-hour livestream where you play games with your friends from all around the world. Despite being only twenty-five, your Youtube channel had grown exponentially in the past three years and you’ve had the chance to meet lots of other Youtubers like Markiplier, PewDiePie, and your close friend, LDShadowLady. 

Currently, you’re on hour twenty of twenty-four and you’re beginning to feel the effects of not sleeping for a whole day. You had been drinking coffee and energy drinks for the past four hours and that seemed to perk you up for two hours max. But your roommate had ordered pizza and that would hopefully wake you up. 

After going to the bathroom and grabbing an entire box of pizza, you return to your recording room and sit down. You put your headset back on and eat a slice of pizza before switching the views back to you. “And we’re back. I hope you guys enjoyed my rats because I don’t. They keep me up at night.”

You read a comment while loading up Among Us and laugh. “No, they’re not dead. They’re sleeping. They do that a lot when they’re not fighting.” 

When you finally get into the game and entire the code, you spawn in. You also quickly join the Discord chat and wince when nearly ten voices hit you at once. 

“y/n!” exclaims Lizzie and the other voices die down for a moment before rising to greet you. 

You wince again but laugh. “Jesus, you guys are loud. Hey, Lizzie.” You move your character to the customize tab and go to try and switch your color. But then you frown and realize that you’re stuck with being dark blue. “Damn, I wanted to be white.”

“Do you want to switch?” Corpse asks. 

Your eyes widen you your stomach flips. You hadn’t noticed Corpse was in this game. Immediately, your chat became flooded with keyboard smashing and lots of “omg my shipp” and “y/n rlly said ‘anna oop-’” 

“Uh, yeah, if you don’t mind,” you manage to stutter out and take a bite of pizza as Corpse’s player comes over and the white option becomes available. You select it and also select the goggles in the hats menu. 

“How’s your stream going?” asks Sean. 

You shrug. “Pretty good. I’m super tired, though. I literally almost fell asleep while playing Monopoly with Mark, Wade, and Bob.”

“You went to college, right?” You’re pretty sure that’s Roomie. 

“Yep,” you affirm with a nod even though they can’t see you. “You’d think that those all-nighters writing papers and studying for finals would make me able to do this.”

There’s a laugh in the group and the round starts.

3 rounds before the incident

You scratch your eyebrow and sigh in relief when you’re the crewmate. You mute yourself and slide up in your chair. 

“I like being the crewmate,” you say, heading towards admin as a habit. “It’s a lot less stressful than being imposter.”

After doing your tasks in admin and fueling the engines, you stumble across a dead body in the lower engine and a vent closing. 

“Oh,” you say, and press the report button. You unmute yourself and begin with, “So I saw a vent close but I didn’t see who went in.”

“Who died?” asks Lizzie. 

“Felix,” says Sean. 

You smirk. “It’s always yellow that dies first.”

“Where was the body?” Ken asks. 

“Lower engine,” you reply. 

“I was in medbay with Corpse doing the scan so it wasn’t him,” PJ says and Corpse makes a noise of confirmation. 

This makes your cheeks heat up and you smack a hand over your mouth. Your chat explodes again but you decide to ignore it. 

“And I was doing wires in cafeteria,” Lizzie says. 

“Sean, where were you?” 

“I was in reactor doing the simon says thing,” he answers. 

You sigh. “I hate that one. What about you, Ken?”

“I was with Roomie in electrical doing the power thing. You know, the one where you have to divert it somewhere else.”

“So do we skip then?” asks Lizzie. 

“No one is super sus, so I’m going to skip,” you answer. 

When no one is ejected, you mute yourself again. “I dunno why, but Sean seems pretty sus. Because I didn’t see him on the way down from upper engine. But I guess he could have gotten there in time.” You shrug and run over to the trash chute in the cafeteria. “RIP to Felix, though.”

After doing the trash there, you head down to storage, running into Corpse doing the wires in there. You wait there to clear him and once you do, you run a few circles around him to get his attention and he follows you over to the trash in storage and watches you do that. After that, the two of you head over to electric together and do wires there. 

Suddenly, there’s a body reported and you unmute yourself. 

“Sean just killed Lizzie in front of me!” exclaims PJ. 

“PJ killed Lizzie,” Sean retorts, flipping the blame. “I watched it, he didn’t realize I was there and murdered her.”

“I watched PJ do the scan in medbay, he’s cleared,” Corpse says and you find yourself smiling for no reason. “Sean, you killed Lizzie.”

“I knew he was sus,” you say, grabbing another piece of pizza. You look at the box and your eyes widen. Had you really already eaten half of it?

“Wait wait, how am I sus?” Sean asks. 

You take a moment to swallow. “Because when I was doing fuel earlier, I was running down from upper engine and didn’t see you in reactor. Sure, maybe you could have gotten there earlier, but it was super weird.” 

The discussion time ends and PJ immediately goes to vote for Sean as well as you, Corpse, and everyone else still alive. Sean ends up getting ejected. 

stinky was an imposter 

1 imposter remains

“You’re such a detective, y/n,” Sean says when he gets ejected. 

You laugh. “I just play this game too much.” You then mute yourself and smile. “I am a genius.” 

You end up finishing your tasks quickly after that and then stand in the cafeteria and eat another piece of pizza and read some of the chat. 

“’ What am I going to do after this?’ I don’t know. I might play some Minecraft. Should I have a poll on Twitter? I’m stuck between public Among Us games, Minecraft, and taking random quizzes on Buzzfeed.” You smile and hear another sound effect and something pops up on the screen. “Thank you to coochie man for donating a hundred dollars, that means a lot.” You laugh at their name. “I love your name, by the way.” 

There’s some rattling in the cage behind you and you turn around to see one of your rats drinking water. You turn back to the chat and read another comment. “’ Do you have a crush on Corpse?’” You blush and smile, biting your lip. “I mean, his voice is hot. I’ve never met him since he lives in San Diego and I live in h/t, but yeah, I guess I do. I’ve been listening to his music for the past few days and it’s really good, you guys should go check it out.”

You look up and unmute yourself when a body is reported. “Who died?” you ask. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Are you already done with your tasks, y/n?” Corpse asks. 

God, even the way he says your name is making you blush. “Yeah, I get them done quick.”

“She does that,” says Lizzie, “She always gets her tasks done quick.”

“Ken is dead by the way,” says Roomie and your snort, smacking a hand over your mouth. “I found him in the hallway by navigation. Where was everyone else?”

“I was in cafeteria doing nothing,” you say, leaning back in your chair and spinning around just a little. “I think I saw PJ downloading while I was in there, but I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Yeah, I was downloading,” says Ken. 

After more discussion, Corpse points out that Jaiden had been following him and it looked like she had been faking tasks. 

“No I haven’t,” she says. 

“That sounds like something the imposter would say,” you hum with a smirk. “That’s pretty sus, Jaiden.”

Everyone else agrees and you all end up voting Jaiden out. 

jaiden was the imposter

0 imposters remain

You cheer as the round ends and a blue victory screen pops up for the crewmates. “Good game, guys,” you say and play again, waiting for the host. 

~

1 round before the incident 

“Oh my god, I’m imposter again?” you groan and sigh when you spawn back in. “I was just imposter, I don’t want to be it again. I’m so bad at it,”

After another short round of you and Felix losing to the crewmates, you all agreed to play two more rounds before Sean had to leave. So you move your character to admin where PJ is and fake the card swipe before moving over to the admin security thing where you could see who was around where. Luckily, no one appeared to be near admin, so you quickly kill PJ and escape through the vent and come out through medbay. 

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” you whisper over and over, running down to storage. “That was clean.” You fake getting fuel and go back up to the upper engine. 

When PJ’s body is reported, you see that your fellow imposter, Sean, had reported it. You stay silent for most of the round and only say that you were in the fuel area when it was reported. 

“Yeah, I saw her run past electrical earlier,” Corpse says. You blush and glance at your exploding chat and shake your head. 

After everyone skips the round, you mute yourself once more and head towards navigation. “I hate this.” You drag the last syllable and watch Lizzie enter the room. You wait a moment before walking towards her and killing her, jumping into one of the vents. You let out a sigh and flex your fingers. “I’m so stressed.” You exit out of the vent into shields and your heart stops when you see someone else in there but you realize that it’s the other imposter, Sean, and you relax. 

You run past him and go to the trash compartments and pretend to unload those. And that’s how the rest of the round goes. You kill someone, someone reports it and you vote someone off. Eventually, you and Sean do a double kill and end up winning the round.

You unmute yourself. 

“Let’s go!” Sean exclaims and you smile. 

“I can’t believe you killed me, y/n!” shouts Lizzie. “I thought we were friends.”

You laugh. “There are no friends in this game. I’m not loyal to anyone in this game. You could be my best friend and I would fucking murder you.”

“That’s cold,” says Roomie as everyone else spawns back in. 

“Yeah,” you nod. 

“Wait, PJ disconnected,” says Sean, and you all end up waiting for him to rejoin. 

In that time, you look at your chat and say, “Hey, do you guys have any questions for who I’m playing with. I’m asking you, chat.”

“I swear if someone asks about my hands, I’m leaving,” Corpse says and everyone laughs. 

You laugh louder when you read a comment and read it aloud, “_Ironlady _says that you should be a hand model, Corpse.”

“Okay, I’m leaving,” you hear Corpse say over everyone laughing. 

“No, stay!” you exclaim, trying not to laugh. “C’mon, don’t leave.”

He sighs deeply and your brain goes fuzzy. “Fine. I’ll stay for you.”

You beam and your tummy turns. You ignore the whistles and remarks from everyone else and stand beside Corpse. You suddenly wish that the little bean characters could hold hands. 

When PJ joins the server again, Ken starts the round and you cross your fingers, hoping to get crewmate. 

0 rounds before the incident

You mute yourself and sigh when you’re a crewmate. “Thank god.” You let out a breath and go over to admin with everyone else. You swipe your card and go to the cafeteria to do some wires there. 

The game turns out to be rather uneventful. A few people die and two people are voted off before the game gets truly interesting. And that happens when you walk in on Corpse and Felix. 

“I’ve had this song stuck in my head for days,” you’re saying, walking from electrical over to O2. “And I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe singing it will help.” You hum the first part. “Don't go in there, you'll become one. Freaky creatures, monster party. Eyes of yellow, scales and feathers, tails in tethers. Turn the lights off. Bend the nightmare, you control it. Artful dodger, easy does it. Shut the closet, get under the covers. Snakes and lovers. Turn the lights off.” You do a little dance for a moment and continue hum the song, glancing at the chat as you go towards O2 after doing wires in storage. 

“Like, I know the song, it’s just been stuck in my head,” you explain. “And it kind of annoys me--”

But you stop as you enter O2 and watch Corpse murder Felix. Neither one of you move and you don’t know what to do. “Uhhh.” 

Then, without thinking, you turn straight around and make your way away from the scene of the murder. “I didn’t see anything!” you shout to no one. “I suddenly can’t see who murdered Felix.” You smack a hand over your mouth and stand in the middle of a hallway. “Oh my god, what do I do? I don’t want to snitch on Corpse, he’s hot.” You scratch the back of your neck and shrug, continuing on to reactor. “I didn’t see anything.”

You’re in the middle of doing the simon says in reactor when Felix’s body is reported. You unmute yourself and fidget with the sleeve of your hoodie. You know exactly who killed Felix. 

“--was in O2,” says Jaiden and you focus back into the conversation. “And I didn’t see anyone around.”

“I saw you heading that way, y/n, but I know it wasn’t you because I saw you do the trash in storage.”

You look at the screen when Sean talks to you and you chew your lip. “I know who killed Felix.”

“Who?” asks almost everyone at the same time. 

You close your eyes and swallow. It’s just a game, why are you taking this so seriously? Suddenly, a song lyric pops into your head and your stomach flips. You imagine yourself saying it and no one knows who you mean except for him. 

You open your eyes. “I’d never snitch on daddy.”

There’s a laugh in the chat and you blush fiercely, your livestream chat blowing up once again.

“I think we know who it is, then,” says Sean, laughing. 

“Yeah,” agrees Lizzie and your eyes widen. 

“Wait, what?” you ask, watching everyone vote almost as soon as the discussion time ends. “Wait, hang on, who--”

“We know who you’re talking about, y/n,” PJ tells you. 

You vote for yourself and your brain goes blank as you see that everyone voted for Corpse. He even voted for himself. They knew. They all _knew _about your feelings for Corpse. 

The round ends with Corpse being voted out and the crewmates win. There’s some talking, but you stay on the victory screen. You’re trying to decide if your mad or embarrassed or both. 

“I didn’t know you’d say that, y/n,” Corpse says, effectively breaking you out of your trance. “I thought you were gonna snitch on me.”

“You heard her,” teases Lizzie and you can tell she’s grinning. “She’d never snitch on you, Corpse.”

He laughs and you feel something in a certain place. “Oh my god, I’m gonna die of embarrassment.” You put your face in your hands, listening to your friends tease you in the chat. You suddenly want to jump out your window and run into traffic. 

“Don’t die,” comes Corpse’s voice through the onslaught of teasing. “I’ll be sad.”

“Fuck!” you shout and slam your hand on your desk, shaking your equipment and scaring your rats. “I’m so sorry, Corpse, that was really weird, I--”

“Stop.” He interrupts you and the chat goes silent and you look up at the screen even though you can’t see him. “It’s okay. It was funny.”

Your eyes widen and then narrow. Funny? He thought what you said was funny? How could he think it was funny?

But then he speaks again and he sounds oddly flustered. “Uh, I gotta go. Um, it was fun playing with you guys. Bye, y/n.”

“Bye Cor--” but then he disconnects and you’re left talking to no one. “--pse.”

There’s a long moment of silence until Felix breaks it. “I can’t believe you just watched me die and didn’t do anything about it.”

There are some laughs and you smile faintly, rejoining the game. “Yeah, uh, sorry about that.”

“Are you okay, y/n?” asks Lizzie. 

You blush and swallow. “I don’t know. God, I’m so weird.” You run a hand through your hair and adjust your headphones

“No, you’re not,” Roomie assures you. “He has a crush on you, too.”

Your eyes widen and you scoot up in your chair. “He does?”

“I mean, he called you pretty once during a game and said that he watches your videos a lot, so maybe.”

You groan and sink in your chair. “I’m gonna go, I need to run into traffic now.”

A few people laugh or chuckle and Lizzie asks you if you’re actually going to leave. 

“Yeah,” you tell her. “But not to run into traffic. I’m going to go play Minecraft to soothe myself.”

“Aw.” You can practically hear her frown. “Okay. Bye, y/n.”

“Good luck with your stream,” Ken tells you. 

You grin. “Okay, thanks, bye.”

When you exit the game and leave the chat, you scream. You actually scream and it’s loud. Your roommate even knocks on your door, asking if you’re okay. 

You look at them and nod. “Yeah, totally fine. Probably about to have a mental breakdown, but I’m fine.”

“Okay,” they say and lean on the doorframe. “But I’m not cutting bangs for you again.”

You laugh and nod. “Yeah, okay, fine.” They leave and you turn back to your stream, feeling like you’re about to cry. Corpse knows you have a crush on him. And it seems like he has one on you as well, but now you’re embarrassed because you called him ‘daddy’ on stream.

You rub your eyes. “Well, now I know what’ll be streaming on Twitter tonight,” you tell the chat. 

[satoshi-mochida]

Samurai Shodown will launch worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June, followed by Switch in Q4 2019 and PC at a later date, publisher Athlon Games and developer SNK announced. It will feature Japanese voice-overs and support English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Pan-American Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese subtitle language options.

The Unreal Engine 4-powered fighting game is a reboot of the classic series set between the events of Samurai Showdown V and the original game. It will feature 16 total fighters, including 13 returning characters and three brand new characters. Additional characters will be released via post-launch downloadable content.

Here is the official fact sheet:

About

After more than a decade, Samurai Shodown is back! SNK is rebooting one of its most successful series, carrying on the legacy of past titles with a new game that retains the same thrilling battles of past titles in a graphically advanced package. Samurai Shodown’s gameplay is driven by the tense atmosphere of being one strike away from death, and the exhilaration of defeating an opponent with overwhelming power and attacks. Taking place between the events of the original game and Samurai Shodown V, the new game carries on the legacy of the one true weapon-based fighter.

Key Features

Exhilarating Weapons-Based Combat – Samurai Shodown carries on the legacy of the tense battles the series is known for, where players are always one strike away from death, and one powerful attack away from victory.

Evolving the Presentation – Using the power of Unreal Engine 4, SNK is able to modernize the unique atmosphere and setting of past titles in a gorgeously artistic package that achieves a detail and graphical quality like never before.

Unique Cast of Returning and New Warriors – Samurai Shodown welcomes back iconic characters from past iterations, including the swordsman Haohmaru, his rivals Ukyo and Genjuro, the shrine maiden Nakoruru, and fan-favorite Galford. The starting roster will include a total of 16 characters—13 veterans and three newcomers to the franchise.

All New Gameplay – Carrying on some of the key fighting mechanics that made the series popular, such as the Rage Gauge, Rage Explosion, Sword Clash and more, Samurai Shodown will also include several new techniques, including a powerful, one-time use attack from each character called the Super Special Move.

Revolutionary New AI System – Titled Dojo Mode, SNK has developed a proprietary AI system that learns from player patterns and creates a specific Ghost clone from that data. With this system, players can fight against their own Ghost or take on the Ghosts of top players in mock battles.

The public will be able to go hands-on with the game for the first time at PAX East 2019, which runs from March 28 to 31 at the Boston Convention Center. SNK will also host a panel, “Samurai Shodown: Resurrecting a Legend” on March 30 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. ET featuring producer Yasuyuki Oda, director Nobuyuki Kuroki, original Samurai Shodown director Yasushi Adachi, and several other staff members from SNK.

Get a new trailer and 44 minutes of Gematsu-recorded gameplay footage below, as well as our preview of the game and interview with producer Yasuyuki Oda, director Nobuyuki Kuroki, and game designer Joshua Weatherford.

PAX East 2019 Trailer

44 Minutes of PlayStation 4 Pro Gameplay

Navigation

0:20 – Story Mode Introduction: Galford

2:04 – Story Mode Battle: Galford vs. Earthquake

4:49 – Story Mode Battle: Galford vs. Haohmaru

8:05 – Story Mode Introduction: Haohmaru

9:48 – Story Mode Battle: Haohmaru vs. Galford

12:09 – Story Mode Battle: Haohmaru vs. Genjuro

17:02 – Story Mode Introduction: Nakoruru

18:52 – Story Mode Battle: Nakoruru vs. Jubei

21:27 – Story Mode Battle: Nakoruru vs. Jubei (Rematch)

24:35 – Story Mode Battle: Nakoruru vs. Earthquake

29:13 – Battle Mode Battle: Haohmaru vs. Genjuro

32:42 – Battle Mode Battle: Earthquake vs. Charlotte

36:42 – Battle Mode Battle: Genjuro vs. Jubei

41:39 – Battle Mode Battle: Galford vs. Charlotte

Preview

I played about an hour or so of the new Samurai Shodown and it felt good—really good. I have stated this in the past, but I am not big on fighting games. I am generally not good at them and tend to only play for fun with friends. That being said, I went into playing Samurai Shodown without really caring much about it. But after some hands-on time with the weapons-based fighter, I am actually kind of hyped?

Samurai Shodown is being treated as a reboot to the long-running series. Story-wise, it is set in 1787, after the events of Samurai Shodown V in 1786 and before the events of the original Samurai Shodown in 1789. While the Kansei reforms have been enacted by the newly appointed Matsudaira Sadanobu, a mysterious dark force is looming on the horizon, prompting the warriors of Samurai Shodown to gather and set out on individual journeys and fight for their own beliefs. Each character character has a different story.

The game has a roster of 16 characters, 13 of which are returning from previous games. They are Charlotte, Earthquake, Galford, Genjuro, Hanzo, Haohmaru, Jubei, Kyoshiro, Nakoruru, Shiki, Tam Tam, Ukyo, and Yoshitora. The other three are completely new characters who have yet to be announced. I played as a few characters during my session, including Galford, Haohmaru, Nakoruru, and Jubei. As for stages, the stage selection screen appears to offer 13 total options.

Playing round after round of Samurai Shodown, I learned that no two characters are alike and that a single strike has a ton of pull, as one hit can deal massive damage and significantly turn the tide of battle. The game is built atop various mechanics, starting with the “Rage Gauge,” which fills up the more you are hit. When the Rage Gauge is filled entirely, your attack power increases, special moves become stronger, and you can use a “Weapon Flipping Technique” to disarm your opponent. You can also deplete the entire gauge to activate a once-per-match “Rage Explosion,” which enables the use of a “Lightning Blade” attack in which the character leaps forward and uses a quick strike that deals heavy damage. Each character also has a “Super Special” attack that, like Rage Explosion, can only be used once per match. Each Super Special plays out a character-specific scene that reflects their personality or style. Nakoruru’s, for example, captures her resolution to protect Mother Nature while also illustrating her displeasure of fighting. The commands to activate these techniques are simple and the same across every character, which means that there is no need to memorize complicated commands for different fighters. Finally, there are also “Sword Clashes,” which occur when two attacks perfectly clash, prompting you to mash the attack buttons to retain your weapon and send the opponent’s weapon flying.

I picked up on the game’s systems quite fast as I played, and even went toe-to-two with producer Yasuyuki Oda. (Though, I think he went easy on me.) The systems are incredibly easy to grasp, but the real challenge comes in utilizing them correctly while timing your strikes and preventing your opponent from dealing significant damage. It felt like there is quite a lot of strategy involved, and it is something that I found myself wanting to learn and master. Playing as Galford, I got the upper hand on Oda in our first match as he was so used to Galford’s behavior when playing against game designer Joshua Weatherford that he did not expect me to react in certain ways. (Or at least that is what I was told. I still just think he went easy on me!)

In terms of game modes, Samurai Shodown offers the classic Story Mode, an offline Battle Mode (which in itself includes modes such as Survival), an Online mode to compete against players across the world, a Practice mode (which includes Tutorial and Training modes), a Gallery Mode to view player-unlocked movies, artwork, and background music, and a new Dojo Mode in which you can upload and fight against your own “ghost data” or the download and fight against the ghost data of other players.

Dojo Mode is an entirely new asynchronous online mode, which according to SNK utilizes “deep learning technology” to have the game’s artificial intelligence learn from your techniques and habits during offline mode gameplay to create a “ghost AI” character that both you and other players can fight against online. An “Ironman Challenge” mode in which players can try to fight 100 ghosts in succession is also being implemented. SNK even has a patent pending for Dojo Mode. Unfortunately, SNK is not saying more about Dojo Mode for the time being, one of the reasons being that the mode is essentially built off player data, which the team does not currently have.

Visually, Samurai Shodown is an eyeful. From graphics to menus, everything is decorated in a traditional Japanese aesthetic—as is appropriate for its Edo period setting. That setting and visual design make the fighter stand out as something truly unique from the rest of the crowd.

Samurai Shodown is by no means the most well-known name in fighting games, but with the release of this spectacular-looking reboot and its participation as a main title in the upcoming Evo 2019 tournament, I really hope that it gets more recognition. I really want to pick this one up and learn its ins and outs.

Interview

This is the first new Samurai Shodown game in over a decade—the last new one being Samurai Shodown Sen for Xbox 360 and arcade in 2008. What was now the time for something new?

Nobuyuki Kuroki, Director: “There are various reasons, one being that when I was at SNK back in the day, I always wanted to work on Samurai Shodown more and more. I did a little bit of work on the Samurai Shodown 64 series. But there’s also just the fact that there has been a major focus on eSports recently, and I feel like this game in particular is very unique and will stand out on the eSports scene. And in general it’s just an iconic series for SNK, and we’ve had a lot of fan requests from the community to bring it back.”

Speaking of eSports, I think it’s safe to say a lot of people didn’t expect Samurai Shodown to be a main title for Evo 2019 in August. With the game due out in June, are you worried there won’t be enough time for players to learn how to play at a sufficient level?

Yasuki Oda, Producer: “I’m a little worried. (Laughs.) I’m a little bit worried that it might not be the top-level play that you’d see. But I also think that the system in general is just so simple and easy to pick up that people will jump right into it. And you might see a lot of people come out of nowhere that haven’t been on the scene before, who resonate with this game that’s so different from other games, and make a new entrance.”

Joshua Weatherford, Game Designer: “I personally think that the systems are not just simple, but also difficult to master. So it’s that perfect balance for me in game design. One thing that we like to point out is that we were very careful to stay as close to the roots as possible for some of this stuff. So you know a lot of times whenever you see modern fighting games, they’ll change the move sets around, cut some of them out—almost none of that happened here. We kept everything in—we just tuned it a little bit to be more balanced for modern fighting games—but there’s very few cases where you have a character that’s lost half of there moves or something like that. So people who know Samurai Shodown from the past, who know a specific character—they’re going to be able to jump right in, in my opinion.”

Moving on to characters, The King of Fighters XIV had a very generous starting roster of 50 or so fighters, compared to the 16-character roster of Samurai Shodown. Do you feel like that might be too little?

Weatherford: “Not really.”

Oda: “We’re not really worried about that honestly, because The King of Fighters is a team-based fighting game—three-versus-three, so you need a full team of three characters. So in my opinion, when you take one-third of that roster, you get about the amount in this game, so it works. Also, there’s not really a single clone character—that’s always been one of the things about Samurai Shodown. Even Hanzo and Galford, two ninjas that should play alike, play nothing alike. A couple of motions might be similar, but very few characters are actually similar to other characters. So all of them really stand on their own.”

And you guys aren’t showing the three original characters right now, but can you give us a hint?

Athlon Games representative: “No! We’re not answering that. (Laughs.)”

Hey, get out of the room! (Laughs.)

Weatherford: “They’re really cool, that’s all I’ll say. All three of them are really cool.”

Woo, big giveaway there. (Laughs.) Anyway, while we’re still talking about characters, given the rising popularity of guest characters, is there a possibility that we’ll see fighters from other franchises appear in Samurai Shodown?

Oda: “Yeah, we’re definitely interested, especially in finding a character that really fits this kind of gameplay.”

Say there were no restrictions on which guest character you could include, who would you choose to add to the roster?

Kuroki: “Oh man, that’s hard… Luke Skywalker.”

Oda: “(Pulls up an image of a Mobile Suit from the Gundam franchise on his phone.)”

Weatherford: “For me, I’d want TOEI Spider-Man. I love Spider-Man and I want something that’d fit this, so there’s actually a tokusatsu Spider-Man—like old school, giant robots—made back in the ’70s… None of these could ever actually be in because of licensing issues. (Laughs.)”

Oda: “If I’m thinking about swordplay, I’d like to put in Aragon from The Lord of the Rings.”

How do you plan to draw in beginners or players who don’t normally play fighting games?

Kuroki: “I think it really just comes from the basic fighting system of the game. Single strikes are so useful and damaging that you could win even if you land a lucky strike against a high level player.”

I think that’s what I did against Oda-san…

Oda: “(Laughs.) Well, we also made sure that all the super moves are the same inputs for each character. So as long as you know one character, you can easily jump into another character. Which is very different from say, The King of Fighters. That’s very difficult to keep up with everyone’s supers.”

Well, that about wraps up our time. Thank you for speaking to me! I wish you a successful public debut at PAX East 2019!