It's finally time... everyone's favorite salty sister is playable for the first time in Skullgirls!
As is tradition, Umbrella will be arriving in an unfinished state with some work in progress "sketchy" frames. Keep an eye out for frequent updates during this "Alpha" as we work on finishing her up.

HOW TO SELECT UMBRELLA

As mentioned before, characters in their Alpha phase are currently only available to Season 1 Pass holders. If you don't own the Season 1 Pass DLC, you won't be able to use Umbrella yet. Lucky for you, it's on sale right now if you still haven't picked it up! This launch celebration sale will only last until Tuesday September 7th, so don't delay.

Once you have the Season 1 Pass DLC, launch the game in BETA mode by pressing the green PLAY button on Skullgirls 2nd Encore from your Steam library page, then selecting "Skullgirls Beta (Umbrella Alpha)". You can also launch the game in BETA mode by navigating to the in-game Options menu, and pressing "Switch To Beta". [spoiler](You can also use the -beta Steam launch option, if you prefer.) [/spoiler] In BETA mode, you can pick Umbrella on the character select screen as normal! Linux Users: The In-Game "Switch To Beta" functionality is not working. We hope to address this for the next alpha build, which will be very soon. In the meantime, you can launch into Beta mode using the Steam Launch Options OR using the "-beta" in the launch arguments.

WHEN CAN I BUY HER DLC SEPARATELY?

Once Umbrella's Alpha phase is over, her individual character DLC will go live in Early Access on the Steam store. This will allow you to play Umbrella during her Early Access Beta phase without owning the Season 1 Pass. A character's Alpha phase is over once they have voice acting integrated, unique sound effects, and all of their attack animations fully complete.

HOW COMPLETE IS UMBRELLA?

Umbrella has almost everything functionally integrated except for several of her Special Moves and Blockbusters. During the Alpha period, expect to see ~5 new Specials and ~2 new Blockbusters added to her arsenal. We will also be tuning and polishing her visuals and existing toolkit over the coming months. Note that Umbrella's hunger mechanics will take some extra time to tune until it's feeling just right, so expect to see plenty of changes, as they are currently work in progress. We'd love to hear your feedback on how she's shaping up (and any bugs you've come across), so don't be shy in joining the official Discord (discord.gg/skullgirls) and the official forums (skullheart.com)!

WHEN WILL UMBRELLA BE FULLY RELEASED?

Umbrella is slated to have her full release on Steam, PS4 and Mobile in 2021. The other characters in the Season 1 Pass will follow in 2022. We can't get too specific with our planned dates quite yet, but stay tuned for more info!

WHAT ABOUT OTHER BALANCE CHANGES AND OTHER STUFF?

At the moment we've got our hands full with finishing Umbrella, but non-Umbrella related changes will be arriving at some point in the future. That said, there are some changes in this build that were finished a long time ago, so these will be included in BETA mode:
• ANNIE - Throw range slightly reduced.
• ANNIE - JHK no longer refreshes OTG (Off The Ground) when it connects outside of Star Power.
• ROBO-FORTUNE - Catastrophe Cannon (all versions) will never hit and consume a team's assist action after Robo-Fortune exits the screen when performing a Blockbuster Sequel (DHC).
• ENGINE (ALSO RETAIL MODE) - Hopefully resolved a low level issue where some VFX and projectiles would not vanish at the right time. This was most common on Mac and Linux with Squigly's jMK and cHP, and Valentine's tag-in curtain. This should hopefully also resolve any remaining desyncs between versions when playing online.

PLATFORM AVAILABILITY

We know plenty of you are clamouring for information on Umbrella and the Season 1 Pass's release on other systems, so here's a mini-update on those fronts:

What about Nintendo Switch or ?


Unfortunately due to unique technical complications regarding the Nintendo Switch port, we still can't provide much information on when the Season 1 Pass will appear on the system. We will provide an update as soon as we have an updated timetable on Switch availability. We are not planning on releasing any future updates for the Xbox 360, PS3, or PS Vita versions.

What about Xbox One / Series X?


We are still interested in bringing Skullgirls to the Xbox One / Series X in the future, but we do not have any further details we can share at this time. Stay tuned!

WRAPPING UP

We cant wait to hear your thoughts on Umbrella now that she's finally made her big (alpha) debut! Thanks so much again for all of your support, and stay tuned here and on our social media pages (Twitter, Facebook) for the announcement when the update is live. The Skullgirls Launch Party never ends! <3 All of us at Hidden Variable and Autumn Games