PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Officially Revealed

After it being teased, hinted at, speculated, and just about every term you can think of that means “suspected – and rightly so – but not yet actually confirmed,” Sony has officially announced their first-party fighting game, complete with one of the most unappealing names in videogame-dom. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (ugh) is due to hit the PlayStation 3 sometime this holiday season, and will feature a cavalcade (the exact number has yet to be confirmed) of first-party PlayStation characters, as well as third-party mascots, whoever they will turn out to be.

In the released screenshots, (which you can see below, along with the reveal video – no, I don‘t mean trailer), you can see Kratos, Parappa, Needles Kane (better known as Sweet Tooth), Fat Princess, Sly Cooper, and what looks like one of the Killzone Marines duking it out in a few different stages. The stages themselves look to be drawn from God of War, Patapon, and the Jak and Daxter series. This may or may not mean that we’ll see characters from Patapon and Jak and Daxter appear in the roster, but a PlayStation ‘all-stars’ game missing characters like Jak, Ratchet, Cole McGrath, Lillet Blan, and Oswald the Shadow Knight would be, in my opinion, incomplete. It would also be cool to see stages drawn from thatgamecompany’s Journey and Flower.

Developer SuperBot Entertainment are clearly very excited about the new title, calling it their ‘labour of love,’ and have developed it to celebrate the history of PlayStation’s most iconic worlds and characters. They’ve also outlined their design goal for the game, stating that:

• “With PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, we set out to make an experience accessible enough for all PlayStation fans to enjoy while also creating something deep enough for the serious fighting game aficionado. We think this “accessible yet deep” strategy is the perfect way to bring PlayStation fans of all stripes together.”

With more character and stage reveals on the horizon, and, from the sounds of the PlayStation Blog, something very special planned for E3, it seems like we’ll soon be swimming in news about the title. Keep on scrolling for the video and screenshots, if your interest isn’t yet piqued.

Now, as you may have guessed from my opinions on characters that should be included, I’m pretty interested by the title. After looking at the released media, though, my worry is that the game’s resemblance to Super Smash Bros. is just a little too much. I want to see the game succeed, but it will be up to SuperBot to give the game enough mechanical difference from Nintendo‘s popular first-party brawler to make it stand out, since, stylistically, they are very similar. What do you guys think? Too close to Super Smash Bros.? And what characters and stages would you like to see represented in the first-party Sony brawler?

Tags: PlayStation, Sony