Skullgirls Is Still Getting Updates 8 Years Later
Yup, you heard that right. Yesterday Mike Zaimont announced a pretty big under-the-hood update for Skullgirls. Among the many improvements, the netplay code (powered by GGPO) has received a huge amount of optimization for less stutter and less lag. Sound that was cut off or otherwise repeated during rollbacks is no longer a thing. Playing against others from far away should now be possible with less hiccups.
There’s been plenty of other fixes/polishes:
- If you’re playing against someone who’s using Wi-Fi, you’ll now know by the indicator set next to their ping and jitter
- Replays automatically include GGPO debugging info. Send the replay to Mike, and he can tell you if your Internet is bad or not. GGPO stats can also be viewed during online gameplay with a new launch parameter: -ggposhowinfo
- Super shadows from the PS4 version are now enabled by default on the Steam version
- Some bugs fixed in the Training mode and other areas
Finally, with regards to Mac and Linux in particular, the game now uses Ethan Lee’s FAudio library.
In my brief testing with this update, I think the netcode overhaul has actually made online gaming better, as good as it was before. Haven’t encountered any hiccups so far. The only hitch I’ve come across is occasionally when playing someone in Quick Match; the match will instantly end after “Showtime!”
Great to see Skullgirls still getting updates. According to Wikipedia, the game was released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in April of 2012, Steam in August 2013, and Mac/Linux in September 2015. We’re in 2020 now, and after eight years since the original release it’s still getting some love. That’s a lot of hard work and dedication!
If we go to Steam Charts, we’ll notice the game has over double the players from last month: from 250 to 685. Not bad at all. Anyone here still playing it?
For more information on the update, check the update history.