Free Step Dodge

I wouldn't say it's that unexpected for Samsho 2019, they've been very generous with their DLC so far, Shizumaru was another free DLC character, and if I recall there was a week when the Season 1 pass was available for free, essentially giving you Kazuki, Wan fu, Rimiruru and Basara with no charge, I know this cause i have all these character and i didn't spend a dime on any of them lol

Ah so the others were free as well. It's still surprising considering SNK is no exception for DLC practices. Samsho is one of the rare ones, most games (speciifically fighting games) don't really fall into that category to getting many free characters.

yeah, it's not a super popular practice. the only other games I can think of that have done this are FEXL (4 out of it's 5 dlc characters were free, Terry Bogard was the exception because of course) and Blade Strangers (Summer Kawase, Piaa, and Hawkins were free), but I can see why developers dont, that's money and resources! and these fools ain't running a charity

I feel like the only way we'd see something like this happening from a bigger game like MK, SFV, or Tekken, it'd have to be something low effort and didn't require alot of work, like a reskinned existing character with a remixed moveset. but yeah i don't see them dumping time effort and energy into creating something new and original just to hand it out for free, maybe free with pre-order but that's it

Realistically, they're only doing it because they know they can't truly compete with the big 3;Arcsys, Capcom, & Bamco. So, free characters create traction for their games. They're doing okay with the revenue from their characters in other games at the moment. SNK games have it okay with China alone. That's decent cash flow and they've always been humble.