The Soulcalibur franchise is well-known for its guest characters – a trend which has started to spread throughout the fantasy fighting genre.

Legend Of Zelda’s Link found his way into Soulcalibur II together with comic book anti-hero Spawn and Tekken’s Heihachi. It looked like we may be given a reprieve from these out-of-place warriors when there were none to be seen in the third installment of the series, however, those hopes were dashed when Darth Vadar, Yoda, and the Apprentice from The Force Unleashed turned up in number four.

But back to 2011 and the announcement that Ezio Auditore de Firenze will be a playable character in the fifth game in the franchise. Together with his signature wrist-mounted blades, Ezio will wield a sword, knife, crossbow and gun. Call me out-of-touch with today’s modern fantasy beat’em-ups, but isn’t equipping a character with two projectile weapons just a little mean to the rest of the roster of sword and axe toting fighters? Perhaps not.

The most recent fighting game to adopt the Soulcalibur practice of throwing in random characters from video games was Mortal Kombat (2011), which featured Kratos from God of War as a platform exclusive for the Playstation.