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Guilty Gear's Baiken makes her way to Samurai Shodown this week

Past meets the future as Guilty Gear's brash one-armed samurai becomes playable in Samurai Shodown this week.

TJ Denzer

August 16, 2021 7:15 AM

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More than a couple years after its original launch, Samurai Shodown is still kicking and slashing around with some pretty great content to show for it. We’ve seen a lot of characters from across the franchise come back to the game in recent season passes, not to mention some surprises. However, SNK announced a new DLC character that’s equal parts delightful and makes perfect sense for the game. Baiken, the one-armed, pink-haired samurai from Guilty Gear is coming to Samurai Shodown as a DLC character this week.

Baiken was revealed for Samurai Shodown’s DLC roster in a surprise trailer on SNK's KOF YouTube channel on August 16, 2021. Beginning on August 19, 2021, Baiken will be available for purchase as a playable character in SamSho. She’s looking like she’ll fit right in, too. For those who don’t know, Baiken is missing an arm, but in the place where her arm would be, there are a ton of deadly gadgets, including a cannon, claw, spinning blade wheel, and many more. She might be a bit toned down from the speed of Guilty Gear, but her move set looks quite intact for Samurai Shodown.

Baiken comes at a time when SNK and Arc System Works are quite active these days. Currently, SNK is still supporting Samurai Shodown (which came out in 2019) while preparing for The King of Fighters 15, which will be launching in 2022. Meanwhile, Arc System Works has been firing on all cylinders with the impeccable launch of Guilty Gear Strive, which just saw the reveal of its latest DLC character Jack-O’ during EVO 2021 Online.

Baiken is not the first collaboration that SNK has done with Samurai Shodown. The Warden from Ubisoft’s For Honor was also a character in the game, but it’s also worth noting that a Guilty Gear collaboration was originally teased back in February 2021. It’s great to see it finally pay off in the form of Baiken and we’ll look forward to bringing some Heaven and Hell to the Samurai Shodown roster this week.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.