LAS VEGAS -- Marie-Laure "Kayane" Norindr, 28, grew up in a household of gamers in France. She picked up her first love, Tetris, when she was only four. When Soulcalibur 2 came out for the Sega Dreamcast, the game's aesthetic and music captured her imagination. One of the characters, the fierce sword-wielding Chai Xianghua, became her idol and what she wanted to become when she grew up.
"I had to prove myself at a very young age at a time women weren't competing at all and I was one of the first ones," Kayane said.
Her two older brothers were the ones who took Kayane's love of Soulcalibur and transitioned it into the world of competitive fighting games. Her oldest brother was a mastermind behind the techniques of the game and could analyze the sweet science of what worked best in each situation. The second brother was the opposite, a complete instinct-first player, whose flexibility was second-to-none and could adapt to whatever was thrown at him.
Both brothers, though, lacked the natural reflexes their little sister possessed. Regardless of how technical they were about the game or how well they were at rolling with the punches, the absence of those quick fingers and mechanics limited how far they could go as players.
The brothers, realizing their ceiling and watching their little sister play, knew the only way for someone in the family to make it to the next level would be if they taught Kayane everything they knew -- and that's how the Queen of Soulcalibur was born.
"I started to believe I was strong when I was 10 years old," Kayane said in an interview with ESPN at the 2019 Evolution Championship Series at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas. "At nine, I started to compete and my brothers brought me to tournaments, and they called me a prodigy [because] I was beating people twice or three times my age."
Kayane went to her first international tournament at the age of 12 and finished fourth at the Soulcalibur World Cup. She began learning English during this time so she could communicate with the players she met while traveling across the world. While Kayane could communicate against opponents through the language in the game -- how each player moved, what someone did in a certain situation when backed against a wall -- she wanted to be able to make friendships within the community outside of just the television monitor and the fighting sticks on their laps.
All of her hard work led up to 2009 when she competed for the world championship of Soulcalibur at EVO, believing she could win it all. When it was all over, she finished in ninth place, one spot outside of the all-important top-8 position which every entrant covets. If you make the top 8 at EVO, you're allowed to play on the big stage in front of the raucus Las Vegas crowd. Kayane, exasperated and laying down on the floor following her ousting, didn't know if she would ever have the chance to play on the big stage in front of the community that made her who she is today.
"The difference between other games, other esports and fighting games is that the fighting game community ... is a community," Alicia Junus said. Janus, a lifelong Soulcalibur fan like Kayane, grew up in Canada and has become a staple in the scene, commentating top 8 at this year's EVO and owning her own esports team, Accelerate Gaming. "We all come together. For the players, it's 'oh, let's share a room together. Sure, we don't know each other too well, but hey, it'll make it cheaper.'"
A decade following what she thought might be her final chance to enter the main stage at EVO, Kayane got her second chance with the release of Soulcalibur VI, returning the legendary series to the fighting game spotlight. After being a side tournament in 2018 (in which Kayane finished fifth), the game was promoted to the main event this year. Although Kayane had won an all-female Street Fighter side tournament at EVO, none of the success took away from the lack of a medal given out by the organizers of EVO, which recognizes the top 8 players of each main title game.
She wanted a medal.
When she finally qualified for the top 8 for the first time at EVO on Friday, tears of joy escaped from her eyes. When asked how it felt to look into the crowd applauding her victory, she didn't use the word "crowd." It wasn't a crowd to Kayane. The people in the front of the stage, jumping up and down and mimicking the mannerisms of the characters in the game, were a part of her community. They'd been with her since she was a child and now, at 28, they were still there, maybe with different faces and backstories, but the community was still with her, nonetheless.
"I had a lot of people who underestimated me and didn't accept me, but I discovered a community that was welcoming and treated me like a little sister," Kayane said.
Kayane didn't win the Soulcalibur tournament. In fact, she lost quickly in her first match in the top 8. A day later, though, there were no signs of defeat on her face or tinges of sadness in her tone. She was happy. As she bounced from interview to interview, so too did her top-8 medal, slung around her neck, a symbol of the hard work she has put into the game and community for two-thirds of her life.
She might have not been in France, but watching her talk to fellow competitors and take photos with fans of the Soulcalibur game, the Queen of Soulcalibur was home.