After appearing in arcade, the game was made available for PlayStation in 1996. Set in the late sixteenth century, the game follows nine warriors in a quest, each of whom has their own reasons for joining the quest but they all share a common goal: to obtain the legendary sword, called 'Soul Edge'.

This enhanced version was then ported to the PlayStation, where it was renamed Soul Blade outside Japan. The first installment, titled Soul Edge, was released for arcade, and was later updated to Soul Edge Ver. For example, Seung Han Myong (Romanized in later games as Seong Han-myeong) is not featured in the arcade version of Soul Edge and in home versions there is a role-playing-type mode titled 'Edge Master' where the player can unlock various items including weapons for the default characters. The ported versions are known for their extra features, including characters, weapons, costumes, art galleries, martial arts demonstrations and involved single-player modes, when compared to the original arcade versions. Īll games in the series before Soulcalibur III were originally released as arcade games, and subsequently ported to home consoles. Although the games are usually credited to Namco itself, the team established its name to draw attention to the group's combined accomplishments. Project Soul is the internal Namco development group responsible for the Soulcalibur franchise after the release of Soulcalibur II. While it has developed during its various iterations, some of the characters and gameplay elements have remained consistent throughout the series. The central motif of the series, set in a historical fantasy version of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, are mythical swords, the evil weapon called Soul Edge and the subsequent sword used to oppose this evil, Soul Calibur (parsed as two words, while the series' title is written as a single word). More recent games in the series have been released for consoles only and have evolved to include online playing modes.

The first game in the series, Soul Edge (or Soul Blade outside Japan), was released as an arcade game in 1995 and was later ported to video game consoles the widespread success of its first sequel Soulcalibur in 1998 led to Soulcalibur becoming the name of the franchise, with all subsequent installments also using the name. There are seven main installments of video games and various media spin-offs, including music albums and a series of manga books. Soulcalibur ( ソウルキャリバー, Sōrukyaribā) is a weapon-based fighting video game franchise by Bandai Namco Entertainment.

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