The long-awaited Skullgirls character Marie announced for 2023

After 10 years since Skullgirls launched, the game’s main antagonist Marie will finally be a playable character in 2023, developer Hidden Variable Studios announced on Friday. During EVO 2022, the developer dropped a teaser confirming that the character would take the final roster spot in the Skullgirls 2nd Encore Season 1 pass, adding that she would also be coming to Skullgirls Mobile.

The teaser itself didn’t include any footage of the character in action, but it did show Marie talking to her close friend Peacock – nicknamed Patricia.

In the 10 years since Skullgirls was released, Marie has been a highly requested character for both gameplay and story reasons. The developers of Skullgirls have previously stated that Umbrella, Black Dahlia, and Marie would have to be playable in order for the game’s canonical story to be told. Interestingly, with Marie’s reveal, all three characters will be part of the game’s season pass.

Skullgirls was originally released in 2012 and has since had quite a few updates and re-releases, with the current version of the game being Skullgirls 2nd Encore. The game has swapped hands between multiple publishers and developers throughout its life, but has also developed a large, dedicated, and competitive following.

Skullgirls is one of several games to be unveiled at EVO 2022, with the title overriding the first day of the event. Renowned fighting game player SonicFox eventually took home the gold as EVO 2022 Skullgirls Champion, earning a win against Dekillsage.

So far, EVO 2022 has also been home to a few other prominent fighting game announcements. Arcade1Up announced that Marvel vs. Capcom 2 would receive its first official re-release by a licensed arcade cabinet since its delisting, and Capcom introduced two new commentators coming to Street Fighter 6: Tasty Steve and James Chen.