At the EVO 2014 tournament panel for Killer Instinct, developer Iron Galaxy revealed that Killer Instinct 2 veteran Maya will be returning to the roster of the series.  Sporting a new look that fits better in today’s games, all we have to go off of is her official artwork and the details given about her from the event, as no footage was shown.  Equipped with her daggers “Temperance” and “Vengeance”, they’ll enhance all of her punch based normal attacks.  It will also be possible to throw the daggers, making successful hits return them to you, while misses will result in having to retrieve them, similar in the style of the claw wielding Vega (or Balrog in Japan) from Street Fighter.

For perspective, I included her original KI2 design.

All dagger associated attacks will be temporarily disabled while in this state, so it makes her a bit vulnerable.  Players will also be rewarded for successful dagger attacks as they will apparently level up over the course of their use, eventually being able to be combined for an unblockable homing attack, which sounds particularly brutal.  Along with her return, she’ll bring a new stage, the City of Dawn, which looks similar to her original stage in Killer Instinct 2, and apparently will be related to the plot of the new season.

Maya joins TJ Combo for the growing roster of Killer Instinct Season 2, which is on track to releasing on Xbox One this fall.