So far, CES had been rather quiet on the gaming front. We’d heard about Skype for the PSP, saw a few teaser trailers, and heard a few announcements about future titles on Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network.

That was, until this afternoon, when Namco Bandai dropped what might be the biggest bomb of both this year and last year: two legendary Star Wars characters are joining the sword-swinging free-for-all fighter: Darth Vader and Yoda.

The story broke this afternoon over at 1up, who also had the first in-game shots of the two characters. Both characters will be wielding lightsabers and Force powers, though it’s unlikely that they will factor into the game’s actual storyline, a far cry from how Link, Heihachi and Spawn were handled in Soul Calibur II.

The story also drops hints that more characters from the Star Wars universe could appear, but no such characters are known to be appearing. Any such additional characters would certainly need the blessing of LucasArts, who has given such a blessing to the inclusion of Vader and Yoda. The inclusion of Darth Vader marks the second time he has appeared in a fighting game, with the first coming in the critically-lambasted title Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi.

As it stands right now, the characters are console-exclusive: Kotaku reports that Vader will be available to PS3 owners only, while Yoda will tear it up on the Xbox 360. There is no indication that the two characters will be made available as downloadable content on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network, respectively.