During a private pre-TGS, Tokyo Game Show, Namco Bandai announced that their free to play single player game, Soul Calibur: Lost Souls, will launch sometime this winter on the Playstation Network. The new game would also mark the return of Sophitia, the classic Athenian warrior, who died sometime between the events of Soul Caliber 4 and Soul Calibur 5.
Joining Sophitia as the only announced characters as of now are Mitsurugi and Siegfried. Although we can be sure that will change as the game approaches its release. While there has been no word on how the game will be monetized, we do know that it will run on the next iteration of the Soul Calibur 5 engine, and that the game has been streamlined and simplified so that players will be able to perform over the top flashy moves more easily.
This will be Namco Bandai‘s second fighting game to be released as a free to play game. The first was Tekken Revolutions which also launched exclusively on the PS3 with a starting roster of eight fighters. Tekken has been well received on the Playstation Network with over 2 million dollars.
Soul Calibur is the critically acclaimed weapons based 3D fighting game where players battle that debuted on the Sega Dreamcast. It is considered by many to be the best game made for the now defunct gaming system. In its many incarnations the game has seen the likes of Darth Vader, Yoda, and Spawn join its ranks of fighters.