Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection Will Launch As A Free Epic Store Title

Fighting game fans will want to mark their calendars for June 11th, because that's when SNK will launch its freshly-announced Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection. This new compilation will bundle a grand total of seven classic Samurai Shodown games together, including one that's never previously been released. Those playing on PC will have an opportunity to get the compilation for free as well.

First, though, the games that are included in the Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection cover a lot of ground, as we've got the first five Samurai Shodown games along with Samurai Shodown V Special and V Perfect. Samurai Shodown V Perfect is a previously unreleased version of the fifth game, which SNK calls "a true final masterpiece for the NEOGEO."

All seven games in the compilation will feature online casual and ranked modes with rollback netcode, which is definitely something fighting game fans will be happy to hear. The Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection will also include an in-game museum, which is where you'll find concept art, development documents, and video interviews with the original developers of these games. Finally, the collection will serve up a music player with tracks from all of the titles.

The Samurai Shodown NEOGEO Collection will be launching on PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 throughout the months of June and July, but there's one important release date to keep in mind: June 11th. It's on that day that the game will go live on the Epic Games Store, and until June 18th at 11AM EDT, it'll be free-to-keep. Once that free promotion is over on the 18th, we'll see the game launch on Steam, followed by digital launches on Switch and PS4 on July 28th. A physical version of the game will be launching for Switch and PS4 sometime this summer.

So, if you're playing on PC, be sure to grab the game while it's free from the Epic Games Store – otherwise it's going to run you $39.99, its standard retail price across all platforms. It's surprising to see SNK start by giving the game away for free, but if nothing else, that should help ensure that the PC playerbase is a healthy one.