‘We Are Limitless’: Talking to Arc System Works about Guilty Gear -Strive- Season 3

The latest entry in the heavy metal-inspired Guilty Gear series, Guilty Gear -Strive- is without question the largest Guilty Gear game yet—and one of the largest fighting games of the current generation overall, amassing more than 2.5 million players. At EVO 2023, Arc System Works announced Guilty Gear -Strive-‘s upcoming third season, which includes new mechanics, new moves, and a new character: the quintessentially cool (and highly requested) Johnny. With the incredible help of translator Dave Park, Guilty Gear -Strive- team members Ken Miyauchi (who speaks English and was thus able to respond for himself throughout the interview), Akira Katano, and Kenta Asano sat down with ANN at EVO to talk about all the new announcements.

Hello! Could you all tell me about yourselves?

Ken MIYAUCHI: I’m Guilty Gear -Strive- producer, Ken Miyauchi. I’m in charge of deciding which characters to be in the season and planning on the future updates—what needs to be done to expand the player base for Guilty Gear -Strive--. And that’s what I’m doing.

Kenta ASANO: Hello, my name is Kenta Asano, 2D illustrator in Guilty Gear -Strive-.

Akira KATANO: He basically creates designs for the illustrations based on Daisuke Ishiwatari’s illustration. He makes up designs that all the developers reference.

My name is Akira Katano, development director of Guilty Gear -Strive-. I manage the team’s schedule and budget and make decisions regarding development and other things that directors need.

So Johnny is the new DLC character in Guilty Gear. What can you tell me about that?

KATANO: So, Johnny is, as you know, a character that came to be in the earliest entry of the series. He’s the leader of the Jellyfish Pirates—sky pirates—and he also wears an oversized black coat, wielding his Japanese katana to slice his foes.

Johnny is a very popular character in Guilty Gear over here. Is Johnny a popular character in Japan as well?

KATANO: He’s also a very popular character in Japan. Gameplay-wise, a bit of technical skill is required to play him right. However, because of that kind of trait, he is also very loved by the Japanese fighting game players.

What can you tell me about how he will play?

KATANO: So Johnny’s fundamental special skill is the Mist Finer. In the previous entries, he had to throw coins at the opponent to power up his Mist Finer, a skill he uses with his Japanese katana, with a very special Japanese sword technique called “iaijutsu.” He pulls out his sword from the case to slice his opponent. However, in this case, instead of a coin, you get to throw cards—playing cards—at the opponent. And by hitting that playing card with Mist Finer, you get to have additional hits against the opponent. With that being the foundation, we have also added a couple of new things regarding Johnny. So players can enjoy some new aspects at the same time.

MIYAUCHI: I would say for those people who enjoy playing past series Johnny, they might enjoy another style of Johnny in Guilty Gear -Strive-. So it’s almost like evolving their playstyle to fit into Guilty Gear -Strive-.

And speaking of play styles, there are some new mechanics in Guilty Gear -Strive-. What can you tell me about those?

KATANO: So we have two systems inbound; one is an offensive system called Wild Assault, and one is a defensive technique called Deflect Shield. Both of them will use the Burst Gauge and have a very powerful effect.

For Wild Assault, the specification is somewhat different from character to character. There are three types of Wild Assault, and the effect varies by character.

In terms of Deflect Shield, it is a defensive skill that pushes back the opponent to a farther distance. However, it’s not just about turning the tables with the skill; you can also use Deflect Shield to defend against a massive move made by the opponent and make a big chance to strike back.

That being said, Deflect Shield will provide you with a very new way of striking and defending the opponent’s attack. Additionally, the systems we discussed today will use Psych Burst significantly. And we have also tuned the performance of the Burst Gauge as well. So in season 3, one thing players can look forward to is how to manage Burst Gauge, which hasn’t been dealt with in such detail before in the series.

MIYAUCHI: Although we introduced these new game mechanics to Guilty Gear -Strive-, these systems are not designed to be the core mechanics that need to be learned or executed to enjoy the game. We are just adding another level on top of the skill for more advanced players to get into for battle strategies. It sounds complex, but these systems are still fun for casual players. You can try it out in your casual play and figure out how to use these moves throughout your usual gameplay.

What inspired these new mechanics?

KATANO: Well, it’s not about particular game systems or aspects of the game that inspired us to make this system. However, we as a development team looked into the game and wanted to add some more layers for the skilled player who’s been playing Guilty Gear -Strive- for an extended period of time while also inviting new players to come in and enjoy the game. So in that aspect, we have looked into the game and thought of these systems to implement this season.

MIYAUCHI: The starting point for adding new mechanics was initially to add new actions to old characters. Guilty Gear is a kind of game where many players tend to love one specific character and play that one character for their entire game life. And they might not enjoy it if we just add characters. They might sometimes enjoy it more when we make a balance update. But we wanted those players to gain new experience in season 3, and the exact way to do that was to add these new offensive and defensive game mechanics to the entire cast.

What are some other things that we can look forward to seeing in season 3?

KATANO: First, we plan to do a big balance update for every game character. Also, we are adding to certain characters—we’ll be adding new skills, so there will be lots of new content and things for the players to explore and play.

We’ve also refined and redesigned the main menu as well. And, in terms of quality of life, we have made specific improvements. We have made fixes to the network mode as well. So in terms of maintaining and improving the existing game, we are also doing our best. We’re doing our part in that as well.

We will be deploying these things right when we get to update the new character. However, through season 3, we’ll also be making other improvements and updates, so please look forward to that announcement as well.

MIYAUCHI: He basically said what I wanted to say, but beyond all these cool updates, one of the key updates…will be what we are planning in the future. All these updates are done to prepare for future update plans. We can’t really say much more details about it, but what we intend to do for this update is related to all the updates that we are planning in the future.

What can you tell me about the aesthetics of Johnny in this game?

ASANO: So two things, two things. One is actually in terms of this new design, Johnny himself hasn’t changed as much from the previous iteration. However, as we said earlier, Johnny now uses playing cards instead of coins. And we paid a lot of attention to the playing cards we prepared for Johnny so that players could look into the details of the playing cards. And also, to match Johnny’s aesthetics with the art of Guilty Gear -Strive-, we’ve also altered his body proportion slightly to match the -Strive- aesthetic.

So recently, Guilty Gear -Strive- just surpassed 2.5 million units, making it the most popular Guilty Gear game the most popular ArcSys game. What can you tell me about that? Are you excited?

KATANO: First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has purchased and played the game for such a long time. This series has been maintained by all the community’s good stories and supported by their passion and love. So I would like to say thank you to all those who have loved this series. But then again, this 2.5 million is just a milestone we achieved. We will develop the series further to provide users with a better game and gameplay.

ASANO: It feels very humbling, too, hearing that such a large number of people are actually playing the game. Then again, I really want to draw that 3 million user celebration illustration already. So it’d be great if users could support us more.

MIYAUCHI: So when Guilty Gear -Strive- initially started, we were aiming to sell a target of a million. And we’ve already achieved that. And now it’s 2.5 million. At this point, we are limitless. We can keep expanding. And I also want to thank all the fans and community supporting our game; we would like to continue striving to grow the game further in the future.

What do you think makes Guilty Gear so special to so many people?

KATANO: I think it’s what I would call “the only one” aspect; it’s the unique aspects: The aesthetics, the lore, the story, and the gameplay system that can be only in the Guilty Gear series. I think that makes the Guilty Gear series special to many people. And in that way, we would like to keep that special aspect while we develop further.

MIYAUCHI: Not only that, I would say that the music composed by Daisuke Ishiwatari, all the vocal tracks—that also is the core uniqueness of Guilty Gear -Strive-, which not only attracts people who are playing the game but those outside of the video game who listen to the music and all that. And, of course, the community’s passion for the game is why we’ve achieved such a special moment.

Do any of you have anything else you’d like to say about Guilty Gear? About season 3?

KATANO: We are preparing for future surprises. So please look forward to future updates.

MIYAUCHI: He’s just stealing all my words. 2.5 million and the 25th anniversary of Guilty Gear, the franchise record-breaking 2.5 million sales and all that; numbers are not our goal. Our goal is always the player’s satisfaction and enjoyment throughout the video game. We’ll continue updating the game to maintain all that, to keep players having fun, and there will be surprising moments for the next few years.

Guilty Gear -Strive- Season 3 launched on August 24.