14 DAY TRIAL // Video game publisher and developer Namco Bandai has brought Mari Shimazaki, who served as the designer of the Bayonetta character in the video game with the same name, on board the development team working on Soul Calibur V, giving him the task of creating the guest characters for the next installment in the fighting game series.
Until now the designer has created the main look for Laixia, one of the new characters introduced in Soul Calibur V, and has also made alternate costumes for Ivy and Tira, two of the veterans of the series.
It seems that the team also talked about making Bayonetta a guest character but it was not easy to determine which powers she should have and how she could be integrated in the gameplay of the series.
Hisarahu Tago, who is the producer working on Soul Calibur V, stated, “Bayonetta not only uses a weapon but also special magical attacks that were beyond the project’s limit at the time of selecting, so this time she was taken off of the list.”
Mari Shimazaki added, “I think Bayonetta would fit well too, so I personally would like to see it – fighting scenes between Ivy and Bayonetta would be very interesting to watch.”
22 characters have so far been confirmed as appearing in Soul Calibur V and one draw for more mainstream players will be the inclusion of Ezio, the main hero of the most recent two titles in the Assassin's Creed series from Ubisoft.
The story of the games takes place 17 years after the events of Soul Calibur IV.
Soul Calibur V will be launched on the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and will be available on January 31, 2012 in North America and on February 3 in Europe, with no date yet offered for the Japanese market.