Hey everyone, It has been a LONG road, but the final character of the Season 1 Pass is finally here. Marie makes her grand official release simultaneously on all systems TODAY Tuesday 26th March! Read on for the full details of this release, including features that were previously only available in the Beta builds on Steam, and updates on the remaining contents of the Season 1 Pass. [hr][/hr]

MARIE

[previewyoutube=uGOuP-o6Nfg;full][/previewyoutube] If you own the Season One Pass, or purchase Maries DLC individually, here's what you get:

• NEW STAGES

  
  The Skullgirl herself arrives with not one, but TWO new stages!
  Hilgards Castle is the former home of Marie, but its once majestic walls have crumbled and been overtaken by nature.
  The Nightmare version of the stage reimagines the stage in unsettling shades and is haunted by the ghosts of Maries past.

• NEW MUSIC TRACKS

  
  Each of the new stages comes with their own music. Hilgards Castle is accompanied by All That Remains, and the Nightmare stage wails with the guitars of All That Endures Both tracks were composed by Darren Malley and can be listened to on our Youtube channel.

• STORY MODE

  
  The impossible has happened: the Skull Heart has been destroyed while Marie has been spared. Where will Marie's new lease on (un)life lead...?

• PALETTES

  
  A maid of Maries high standards cant just have one outfit - she comes with 29 color palettes!

• TUTORIALS/TRIALS

  
  Become a master of the undead in Maries personalized tutorials & combo trials.

SEASON ONE PASS EXCLUSIVES

For those who have purchased the Season One Pass you also get:

• ALTERNATE "GOTH MARIE" VOICE PACK

  
  Let the bodies hit the floor with this exclusive alternate voice pack!

• SEASON ONE BONUS PALETTE

  
  An extra bonus palette is available for Season One Pass holders.

OTHER CHANGES

• NEW PALETTES

  
  
  New palettes first introduced in Skullgirls Mobile have been added to 2nd Encore with this update! Double, Robo-Fortune, Cerebella, Squigly, Parasoul, Filia, Annie, Umbrella, Ms. Fortune, Peacock, Valentine, and Beowulf all get new colors.

• STAGE UPDATES

  
  
  Over the years many stages have been added to 2nd Encore, including alternate versions of existing stages. To make it easier to scroll through the full stage list, stages that share the same music but with slight visual differences are now selectable by pressing UP or DOWN on the stage selection screen.
  Speaking of alternate stages, to celebrate the launch of the Skullgirls Championship Series 2024, a new stage has been added! Additionally the stage "SGCS Arena (2021)" can no longer be rolled when using RANDOM to select a stage. You can still select it manually by going to the NMO Arena Stage and using the new Up/Down buttons.

• NEW SOVIET ANNOUNCER VOICE PACK

  
  As a replacement for a voice pack that was removed last summer, enjoy a brand new Soviet Announcer voice pack by none other than the voice of the TF2 Heavy himself - Gary Schwartz!

• SOUNDTRACK AND DIGITAL ART COMPENDIUM

  
  The Soundtrack has been updated with the new track "All That Endures", from Hilgards Castle (Nightmare). You can get the soundtrack here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1542600/ The Digital Art Compendium has also been updated with all of Maries thousands of animation frames, concept art and other production art. We recently made the Compendium completely free if you own Skullgirls 2nd Encore on Steam, so download your copy today! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1549100/

COMBAT

• Added new visual effects to "Push Block Guard Cancels" to indicate when a PBGC window is possible, and when it is successfully activated. Watch out for the green shield flash here:
  
• Fixed a bug where some characters were not using idle hurtboxes during landing frames. The following characters are impacted: Beowulf, Big Band, Eliza, Annie, and Umbrella.
• Updated VFX for Valentine's Vial Hazard special move to now use different art for the three debuff types.
  
• Adjusted visual effects and lighting when characters are impacted by palette adjusting VFX, such as Parasoul's fire effect, Annie's galaxy space dust effect, Robo-Fortune's electrification effect, Black Dahlia's freeze effect, etc, to no longer be impacted by stage lighting conditions. Flickering lights involved with these effects should be less distracting.
• Integrated some previously unused voice lines for old characters when fighting against Marie, both for her boss form and her playable form.
• Fixed a bug where Black Dahlia would not flinch like other characters when being hit during some throw attacks, like Cerebella's Pummel Horse.

MISC

• Added a new section to the Art Gallery for Marie, with new unlockable art.
• When declining a match in Quick Match, or recently finishing a match with a player, you will no longer match with that player again for a few minutes.
• Kicked players can no longer rejoin the lobby that they are kicked from.
• Adjusted the position of the timer on character select when playing online, to prevent it from covering up Marie's newly added square.

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THE FUTURE

As we mentioned in the 2024 Roadmap Post, with the SG2E Season 1 Pass winding down, the obvious question is - what comes next? While its tempting to dive right into a Season 2 Pass - weve instead opted to pause for a moment to step back and recalibrate our efforts a bit. What does that mean exactly?

ADDITIONAL VO

In addition to whats already been released (including free bonus voice packs for Umbrella, Black Dahlia, and Marie), there is still a significant amount of VO that we were planning to include in the Season Pass that has not been added yet, including:

• ANNIE ALTERNATE VOICE PACK (English)
• SEASON PASS CHARACTER STORY MODE VO (English)
• SEASON PASS CHARACTER COMBAT VO (Japanese)

As it turns out, the logistics for all of these has proven to be a bit more involved than we had originally anticipated. As such, in order to ensure that everything is done to the quality level that we (and the community) expects, we unfortunately are NOT planning to release this content in 2024. Nonetheless, while the timetable isnt what we originally hoped for, we take our commitments seriously, and we are still planning to release it in 2025. As always, we appreciate your patience, support, and understanding!

FREE SGM PALETTES

As noted earlier, some palettes first introduced in Skullgirls Mobile have been added to 2nd Encore with this update. While the release timing is a little up in the air, we are planning to provide future Mobile palettes FOR FREE to every Skullgirls 2nd Encore player too!

BALANCE PATCH

Now that Marie has been released well be taking a look at some of the rest of the cast and making some balance adjustments. Keep an eye out for updates to the Beta build on Steam soon!

NEW FEATURES / CONTENT / CHARACTERS

Although we dont currently have news on what to expect on this front at this time - just know that we are still intending to support both the console and mobile versions of Skullgirls for years to come. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months! [hr][/hr]

SKULLGIRLS CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

The Skullgirls Championship Series 2024 is fully underway! Compete in online regional events to qualify as one of the 8 lucky competitors to be flown out to Combo Breaker 2024 to compete in the Grand Finals! Check out start.gg/sgcs2024 and be sure to register for one of many events in your area! Interested in hosting an SGCS point earning event? Check out the site for details - its easier than you might think!

LIVE EVENTS & GIVEAWAYS

We are currently planning to attend two live events this year Combo Breaker (Chicago area, May 24-26) and Evo (Las Vegas, Jul 19-21). If youre planning to attend, be sure to swing by the Skullgirls booth to meet us in person and score all kinds of FREE booth exclusive giveaways and prizes. We hope to see you there! [hr][/hr] Just in case you missed it, we recently announced that brand new characters will be added to Skullgirls Mobile this year as Guest Stars - summonable Assist type characters that can help out in fights. The first of these Guest Stars will be the adorable Minette!
Rough animation of one of Minette's Guest Star attacks. Guest Stars are currently planned for SGM only, but theres always a chance they may make their way to SG2E one day! Its been an incredible journey, but after 3 years the final character in the Season 1 Pass is complete! We absolutely could not have hit this milestone without the support of our fans and players. A sincere thank you to everyone whos stuck it out with us for 12 years of Skullgirls! Heres to many more! Stay tuned on our social media pages (Twitter, Facebook) for the latest info on all things Skullgirls! - All of us at Hidden Variable Studios and Future Club <3 [hr][/hr] (Steam Build version 3.6.9)