Soul Calibur IV will be going to the dark side ... or the light side depending on the console as Star Wars icons Darth Vader and Yoda will make guest appearances in Namco's popular fighting game, due out in June. Vader will appear exclusively on the PlayStation 3 version and Yoda on the Xbox 360 version.

LucasArts and Namco made a surprise announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas tonight to a roomful of journalists, as members of the 501st Legion paraded around in their Stormtrooper outfits, keeping the perimeter safe for Lord Vader, who paused to take pictures with everyone in the room.

On hand at the event was Soul Calibur 4 game director Katsutoshi Sasaki, who says he is a big Star Wars fan and is more partial to Yoda because of his acrobatic moves. While we prefer the tall, dark and breathy one, it's hard to imagine Darth Vader competing against the other relatively agile fighters in the game.

"In the movies, Darth Vader doesn't seem to do that much, but he will have his own special moves in the game," Sasaki assures us.

The game maker says his crew thought about characters they'd want in the game -- and Darth Vader and Yoda were the first ones on the list. Afterwards, they approached Lucas and the partnership was born. It will be interesting to see how they merge the Star Wars world and the Soul Calibur storyline, but Sasaki says the two Star Wars characters' appearance in the game will not seem out of place.

Darth Vader and Yoda made a brief appearance a new trailer, but they were not playable at the event.

We did try our hand at a very limited demo of the game featuring classic Soul Calibur characters, Mitsurugi, Sophitia and Taki in two environments. Based on our short time with the game, anyone who's familiar with the fighter will have no problems picking up where they left off. This game still caters to both button mashers and hardcore fighting strategists.

The real question remains -- can these Star Wars characters bring a new audience into the Soul Calibur fold? We'll see what other surprises are in store for this game over the next six months.