Skullgirls Unleashes New Free DLC Character, Eliza

Lab Zero Games has announced the launch of its third crowd-funded downloadable character for indie fighting game, Skullgirls Encore, introducing fans of fisticuffs to the deadly diva, Eliza, in a new gameplay trailer for the PlayStation 3.

A while back, Lab Zero turned to Indiegogo in the hopes of funding a downloadable character for their (then) all-girls fighting game, Skullgirls. The campaign was such a success that the team was able to fund not only their first character, Squiggly, but a collection of fan-voted characters as well.

The first of those additional new characters, Big Band, can be seen in action in the video below. Next up is Beowulf, a professional wrestler with a knack for killing monsters, followed by a couple of re-imaginings for fighters already in the original cast.

Today, though, marks the arrival of Eliza, a parlor singer with a distinct Egyption aesthetic tied to herself, her level, her henchmen and her blood-fueled combat moves.

“Eliza is a diva with a dark secret, and our most ambitious character to date,” said Lab Zero CEO, Peter Bartholow, in a recent post on the PlayStation Blog. “Eliza fights by manipulating her own blood to attack her enemies, constantly shape-shifting into a variety of Egyptian mythological symbols and cultural icons. Our creative director, Alex Ahad, has meticulously researched Egypt’s lore and packed nearly every one of Eliza’s 1,548 frames with references.”

Bartholow went on to say that Eliza can also summon her bodyguards, Albus and Horace, as well as dislodge her skeletal Parasite, Sekhmet, making her one of the game’s most varied and dynamic characters to date.

If you own Skullgirls Encore, you can boot up your copy of the game and start enjoying Eliza right now, whether you were an Indiegogo supporter or not. Like with all of the DLC characters funded by the campaign, that offer is good for the next three months. And, just like all of the other characters, Eliza has her own story for players to dive into, too.

Peter Bartholow went on to explain that, along with the future DLC characters, work is still underway for the PS4 and PS Vita versions of Skullgirls, which is expected to launch sometime in early 2015.

“Skullgirls is still coming to PS4 and PS Vita,” he said. “But we’ve expanded the scope of the port and are adding new features with the aim of making it a better upgrade for fans and a better value for everyone.”