PlayStation Universe reported late last month that Sony Santa Monica had no plans to release more downloadable content for crossover fighting game PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. Today the studio further confirmed this report, stating that everything currently available for Battle Royale "represents the full content for PS All-Stars."
Posted on the PlayStation Community forums, Santa Monica Studio’s Community Strategist explained the lack of new content coming to the game, which was released late last year (early this year in Japan):
"There will not be any new DLC characters or environments released for PS All Stars. We were proud to work with SuperBot Entertainment and they created a great game, but the characters that have already been released to-date represent the full content for PS All Stars," the strategist said.
"In the course of any game’s development, there are always elements that never quite get finished or the team decides not to use in the final game. Some of these additional materials from the game’s development phase have been recently released, but unfortunately these are very far from finished assets and were not included in the final game for a number of production and legal reasons."
While this news may come at the peril of the game’s fan base, the studio has a few items left on the agenda before leaving Battle Royale behind:
Balance Patch – "In particular, we’re assessing all character strengths, weaknesses, and functionality for adjustment considerations in this patch. We have been monitoring your feedback in the forums, and will continue to follow your thoughts throughout the process." The patch will be released this fall.
New Costumes – A third set of costumes for Dante, Raiden, Heihachi, and Big Daddy will be released on August 27, completely free of charge. Zeus and Isaac’s third costumes will also become freely available when the balance patch is released this fall.
Monthly Tournament Leaderboard Resets – To address an issue in which players receive inaccurate titles for their seasonal in-game performance, Santa Monica is clearing the leaderboard clean and will continuously do so each month. The studio does not currently have a fix for the aforementioned issue, but claims it will continue to search "aggressively" for a solution.
The strategist finished by saying that "[Santa Monica wants to] thank everyone for their dedication to the game. There have been a lot of challenges on the development side, and for the players as well, but it’s this kind of passion from players that inspires us to try and move forward, even during difficult times."
What do you think of Sony Santa Monica’s decision to cease content production for PS All-Stars Battle Royale so soon? Share your perspective in the comments section below.
Steven Chaffin, Jr. is an American editor for PlayStation Universe. When the PS4 launches this holiday season, Steven will be leading the front lines in Battlefield 4, and will be exploring the open-world of The Witcher 3 when it releases in 2014. You can get more from Steven on his personal blog, or on Twitter @runnersravings.