There's a Ton of Free Shovel Knight Content in Development, and It Looks Great

Having already delivered a second, fully fleshed-out Shovel Knight campaign for free, Yacht Club Games has now previewed some of the additional free content it has on the way.

Similar to the Plague Knight expansion, there are two more campaigns currently in development: one starring Specter Knight and one starring King Knight. Specter Knight arrives first, and like Plague Knight he offers his own unique abilities and attacks. This includes the Dash Slash, which can pull him either diagonally up or down depending on the position of the nearest enemy. Jumping up with it allows Specter Knight to reach things he wouldn't otherwise be able to get to. He's also able to climb walls, albeit only to a certain extent.

Whereas Plague Knight was developed on its own, Yacht Club is simultaneously working on both of the new campaigns and other new content, including feats, challenges, Battle mode, and Body Swap. The Specter Knight campaign will be coming first, and will be bundled with either Body Swap or Battle mode, which is a competitive multiplayer mode that isn't planned for release on handhelds. The other mode will then be released with the King Knight campaign later. All of it will be offered for free.

Release dates for all of this weren't shared, but Yacht Club says it "should arrive sooner than the wait between Shovel Knight and Plague Knight." Plague Knight debuted in September 2015, about 15 months after the base game's release in June 2014.

Much of this content was announced previously and is coming as a result of Shovel Knight's successful Kickstarter campaign. Still, we're just now getting our best look at Specter Knight in action, and it's hard not to be impressed by the lengths to which Yacht Club is going to deliver new content for free. (When it released the Plague of Shadows update, it revealed that it had spent about $1 million on its development over the course of a year.) You can see more of Specter Knight here.

Yacht Club also today shared details regarding a physical Vita release for the game. You can preorder a copy for $25 through FanGamer right now to ensure you get one when it's released in early October. It shares Trophies and save data with the existing digital version, and you can still make use of cross-save to transfer progress with the PS3 and PS4 versions. It's region-free, comes with a 42-page color manual, and will get access to the same free updates as the digital version.