Page "Soulcalibur" Paragraph 10

After releasing Soul Edge, Namco took some time to evaluate what had made the game successful before jumping into development of its follow-up.

Producer Hiroaki Yotoriyama decided to give the sequel a new name instead of just calling it Soul Edge 2 in order to have a fresh start and take the series in a new direction.

The name Soulcalibur is a portmanteau of the word soul ( as in Soul Edge ) and King Arthur's sword Excalibur ( ultimately, the name would be used within the game's universe for the holy weapon which would counteract Soul Edge's evil ).

Inspired by an internal Namco prototype featuring a character able to run openly in a field, the eight-way run system was implemented.

Upon application, the development team was surprised at how well it meshed with their fighting system, and decided to build the rest of the game around it.

During development they worked closely with Namco's Tekken development team, sharing ideas and research.

Yotoriyama felt that with that cooperation and partnership, they were able to develop " the greatest weapon-based fighting action game in the world ".