Killer Instinct, the Microsoft-exclusive fighting game, and also one of the launch titles of the Xbox One, has now released on PC. This was first announced in last year’s Gamescom, and is part of the new initiative of Microsoft bringing the Xbox as a platform that encompasses more than just the namesake consoles. A slightly controversial one, it seems so far.
Killer Instinct uses a season pass as what the name implies: access to all the contents bound to that one season. This PC launch is coinciding with the launch of its third season of content, introducing new characters, some stage changes, and a whopping list of game changes and character balances. While pricing info is now available for both the Xbox One and PC versions (there are some differences due to reward the PC players who missed out the first two seasons), local price for them is not available in the store front.
For Xbox One players, this should just be an update to the current game. Killer Instinct supports cross save, cross play and cross buy, so you can play in either PC or Xbox One with all the progress and purchases saved and challenge any player regardless of platform.
Anyway, here’s a trailer.
You can head down to the Windows Store and download a free version of the game, where you get access to one character in a weekly rotation. It’s a 21.7 GB download, and if you’re curious to try out how the Windows Store can handle full-fledge games, and how a Universal Windows Application performs, this is the way to go. Be sure to check the system requirements beforehand though, it is available in the store front.
(Note: Killer Instinct is technically Killer Instinct 2013. Story-wise, it’s a reboot of the Killer Instinct series developed by Rare for the arcades and SNES. Rare is now owned by Microsoft, but the first two seasons were developed by Double Helix studios, which later got bought by Amazon. Iron Galaxy Studios, famous for Divekick and plenty of PC game ports, including the infamous Batman Arkham Knight PC port, is now at helms of the development. Since the series isn’t really a thing around Malaysia, we didn’t bother adding the year of release on this game.)