SoulCalibur V’s story mode was originally planned to be four times bigger than it actually is, but time restraints meant it needed to be cut back. That’s according to game director Daishi Odashima who was speaking in an interview with The Train2Game Blog.
He explained that Namco Bandai team didn’t have the staff or the time needed realise their full vision for Soul Calibur V’s story. The story of the released game mainly focuses on two characters, Patrokolos and his sister Pyrrha, opposed to each character on the roster having their own individual story as previous games in the series do.
“Our first plan on the storyboard was that we had every characters story, and actually we do have it in the studio, but time-wise, man power-wise we weren’t able to do it and only one fourth of what we planned to do is in the game.” Odashima told The Train2Game Blog.
He added that many of the other planned stories got full voice-overs during SoulCalibur V’s development, but there has been no decision on how to use them yet.
“Actually, some of the voice-overs are already taken but haven’t been used, so we want to make use of it somehow, but we don’t know how that’s going to be.” he said.
The Train2Game Blog interview with SoulCalibur V game director Daishi Odashima, featuring discussion of game development, the importance of community feedback, advice on becoming a good game designer and more, is here.
What are your thoughts on the amount of story mode that was cut from SoulCalibur V? What do you think it says about the pressure on game developers?
Leave your comments here on The Train2Game Blog, or on the Train2Game forum.
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Yes, I wouldn’t mind buying a separate story mode as DLC depending on the price lol.
pretty much my exact thoughts. DLC; either free or quite cheap because we all expected much more from the offline options of SCV that we found disappointingly lacking.
Vita version with endings etc added and DLC for the consoles thanks.
PLEASE finish the story as originally intended. Missing characters and cheap storyboard fillers for a Story Mode is not enough. Felt pretty ripped off actually. The game would’ve sold better if it wasn’t such a rush job. So much wasted potential.
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I have a strange feeling that Namco will release another version of Soul Calibur V. With all the extra story stuff and more characters, customizations and offline modes we were wanting. It’ll be released as both a disc release and as DLC so you don’t have to buy another disc.
They should call it: “Soul Calibur V: Director’s Cut” or “Soul Calibur V Plus” or “Soul Calibur V point 2”
Better than ultimate hyper super Soul Calibur V.
C’mon Namco. You can do it.
Until that faithful day, I’ll be playing something else. Btw Soul Calibur V isn’t that bad.
I’d personally appreciate an Arcade Mode with character endings. But if they can try and get to these fighters in the Story Mode and flesh out that word, I could go for that too.
I only picked up Soul Calibur V for dirt cheap at GameStation before the shop was axed and I’ve had a smashingly good time with it so far. Shame about the story mode as I thought it was really shallow, especially compared to SC3!
For what I paid though (£27) the game was well worth the money, but I do wish that they wouldn’t rush things and only bring out games that are “complete” like how they used to be back in the 80’s and 90’s.
I so hope Namco decides to make SC5. 2 I was really disappointed with the storymode but felt even worst with their budget limit.
Please Namco…. please give us the rest of the game, follow BioWare’s example, I’m not even a Mass Effect fan but they had a finished game and gave the fans free DLC to make them happy because the consumers didn’t think it was finished enough. You guys had an unfinished game and knowingly released and sold it to the public, continuing to hype up the story and never tell us until launch day how rushed it had been. Between Ace Combat and Soul Calibur Namco was one of my favorite companies, and then Assault Horizon and SCV were huge let downs for me. I don’t want to lose faith in yet another developer.
Wow!!! Story mode was so disappointing!!! I wish that everyone had their story revealed. I was really looking forward to uncovering everyone’s story but that was not not case. I have to say that I love the game but the story mode really turned me off and kind of made me feel like it was a waste of time expecting the game. I really did not care for soul 5 story, I only played it for the achievement to be honest. I don’t feel like they delivered. They could have left legendary soul out and even quick match that no one really cares for and put more effort into the story. And not to mention the lack of new characters was also such a let down! They could have done without edge master, both alphas, kilik and elisium not to mention A few others!!! love the game but extremely let down. I hope there’s good dlc because if not… It’s going to be a total waste of there time and our money!