Killer Instinct Anniversary Edition Does Some Adding – And Subtracting

Rare and Microsoft have revealed a new Killer Instinct Anniversary Edition. Sounds exciting, but it’s always important for these things to read the fine print.

Let’s start with the great news. When Microsoft published the Anniversary Edition, the basic edition of Killer Instinct will be permanently free. That means you can download the game to play one free fighter, but that character gets switched around weekly.  Under this mode, you can play the single-player, local, and ranked modes.

Killer Instinct Anniversary Edition will retail for $ 29.99, include all 29 fighters, and all the premium content that had previously been released for the game. If you already own Killer Instinct, whether that’s on Xbox or on Steam, you are automatically upgraded to the Anniversary Edition.

The previous system allowed you to buy fighters individually, or to buy other DLC. With the Anniversary Edition, all of those get bundled in to the one $ 29.99 purchase. And once again, if you already owned Killer Instinct before, you get all of this for free. So what’s the catch?

The upgrade will lead to the retirement of Killer Instinct Definitive Edition. This version of the game is exclusive to Xbox, and it has extra features that aren’t on Steam, or for people who didn’t upgrade to this version.

Those extra features include developer interviews, concept art, and the Killer Cuts soundtrack. Oh, and also the arcade Killer Instinct and Killer Instinct 2 games. This has been the only time that Killer Instinct and Killer Instinct 2 have been rereleased since they were originally published to the arcades. While fans may want to hope that Microsoft is planning a huge rerelease for these games, maybe including the SNES and Nintendo 64 games as well, here’s the fact: there’s no such announcement yet, so those games are going away.

If you already own Killer Instinct Definitive Edition, you will continue to have access to those games, and the other extra content, after they are delisted for purchase. So Microsoft will honor your purchases and you still have a personal way to reserve your copy of these games.

But this is just creating the same situation that we had with Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Super Mario Bros. 35. These were fine games that Nintendo made, but they also added an unnecessary layer of rarity to them, that didn’t make more profit for the company and also isn’t making customers happy.

Not everyone necessarily feels that every game needs to be always available. For example, Too Human may have been restored to Xbox’s store, but it is both infamously bad and notorious for Silicon Knights’ unauthorized use of Epic’s code. In this case, Code Mystics did make well received ports of Killer Instinct and Killer Instinct 2, and there is a case to be made that they should remain available to play.

It’s a shame that this little detail mars what would be a great announcement reviving a modern classic. But we do have to point out that this is one side of this news that isn’t pro-consumer.