Soul Calibur IV information is upon the horizon now, and a lot of us are being very speculative and hopeful towards the prospect of this being the first game in the series to contain online multiplayer. I hate to burst your bubble, fair readers, but this is still an impossible dream.

Why? Because in all the majesty of the internets, there is still one nasty little constant that affects most gamers to this day. Said nasty is inevitable, soul-crushing lag. They experimented with online multiplayer during the alpha/beta stages of Soul Calibur III but ditched the idea after issues with the impact guard system, and its ridiculously slim timing window. This simply would not work out well in an online setting.

Perhaps I'm being a tad cynical about this, and they will streamline the network code down far enough to allow for precise impact guarding. However, let's be realistic here -- just because Soul Calibur IV won't have online multiplayer doesn't mean it won't have online elements. Maybe the "Conquest" mode of the arcade-version of Soul Calibur II shall make an appearance at last. Who knows?

All I know is that I will still end up buying and loving the game dearly.


UPDATE: This article is null and void since the news was broke that there actually WILL be multiplayer. However, the issue of impact guard lag may be a tough one to resolve.