Defending Killer Instinct

On top of those, Microsoft and Double Helix have competitive fighting game players on staff, such as former Street Fighter tournament player Campbell Tran at Microsoft, and Willette says Double Helix has hired a lot of "new blood" in recent years. The developers also regularly send builds to original developer Rare for feedback, though most of the original Killer Instinct team members have since left the company.

Willette tackles the track record issue more directly. Asked if he's proud of everything Double Helix has made, he says, "[I am] in the sense that I don't want my family to starve. I don't want to starve. I mean, we're all people, right? And we're all put in different kinds of situations." He says that at the moment the studio is trying to look forward rather than focusing on the past.

He also suggests that anyone worried about the game should try it. In the months leading up to the game's release, the team will have it on display at public events such as the EVO tournament in Las Vegas in July. "I want people to understand that we're about the feedback with the community, and we want to hear all the negative things you have to say," he says. "We also want to hear the positive things. ... They don't have to be sugarcoated for us."

Willette says players will be able to purchase and download the game in three ways. First, they can download the base — which includes Jago, online play, a training mode and the basics — for free, then choose to purchase other characters and features piecemeal. Second, they can purchase the equivalent of a season pass and pay up-front to get all the characters and content for the game as they are released. Or third, they can pay for a special edition of the season pass that also includes bonus content.

"We haven't announced [what's in the special edition] yet, but I think hopefully most people can put two and two together," says Willette. Asked if it might be a port of the original Killer Instinct, Double Helix Design Director David Verfaillie just smiles.

The grand idea, Willette says, is to set the game up so it can evolve over time based on player feedback and data. "I would say 'games as a service' is almost appropriate," he says. "We want to be the Killer Instinct platform."

If the game is successful, Willette says, he can envision a scenario where Double Helix continues to work on the game for years post-release. Asked if he could see it lasting four years, he says, "Oh that would be the dream, yeah," noting that the team has plenty of ideas for new and returning characters.

"We think it's more nickel and dime-ing to release a game and then, less than a year later, release the exact same game with one new feature," he says, though he can't reveal how much each of the ways to pay for the game will cost yet.

In many ways, the attention on Killer Instinct this week is a form of flattery. When competitors Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate and Tekken Revolution recently announced free to play models, fans didn't revolt with the same ferocity. And that might be because those were ports of pre-existing, traditionally-sold titles, but in the long run the business models look similar across all three.

For Double Helix, all the team members can do is explain how things came about and try to make a game that will convince players it's worth checking out. And they have a series of rules to get there — the game has to run at 60 frames per second, they have to listen to community and playtest feedback and they have to not veer too far from what made the game memorable in the first place (with elaborate combos and crazy special effects).

In our hands-on time with the game this week, the controls brought back tons of old memories, with the same pacing and animation style from the '90s, but now brought up to date visually. If all goes well for Microsoft and Double Helix, soon more people will get their hands on the game and feel the same way.

Killer Instinct is scheduled to release as an Xbox One launch game in November.