We got to speak with Guilty Gear Strive’s producer, Ken Miyauchi, about the future of the fighting game — and he says there’s something “big” on the horizon that will shock players.
Guilty Gear Strive first released in 2021, giving the fighting game community something to sink their teeth into during the pandemic. Arc System Work’s gorgeous, updated graphics and exciting new characters made Strive an instant hit with fans.
It’s been four years since then, leaving players wondering where the game is headed and what the roadmap for Strive looks like, given the current state of things at Arcsys.
For reference, the studio has begun branching out into different gaming genres, publishing titles like narrative adventure ‘Dear Me, I was…’ and isometric action game ‘Damon and Baby.’ They even introduced Guilty Gear’s first-ever guest character Lucy from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners in 2024.
Arcsys is preparing “something big” for Guilty Gear Strive
Given that they’re also developing Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, it seems like there’s a lot going on at ArcSys right now — and, according to Miyauchi, that includes exciting new updates for Strive.
“I can’t talk too much about it, but we do have a plan,” he told us at Anime Expo 2025. “Some people might be thinking, ‘Well, Guilty Gear Strive will not have any more updates after the end of season four,’ because we still haven’t announced anything yet. But that’s actually not true.
“I can’t say what our plans are right now, but I’m preparing something big and exciting that people probably won’t expect. They won’t know what we have in mind, or what we’re preparing.
“Because we’ve recently announced a fighting game with a different IP, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, and a lot of Guilty Gear Strive players might be worried that the game is gonna end. But that’s actually not true, so don’t worry about it.”
Strive producer wants different games with Guilty Gear IP
While Miyauchi wouldn’t say anything more, he told us that he was keen on potentially breaking out into other genres of games using the Guilty Gear IP. However, given that Arcsys is currently undertaking a lot of new projects, he isn’t certain when — or if — this will actually happen.
“It’s unpredictable,” he admitted. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but one good thing that I’m possibly thinking is that, since we’re experts on making fighting games, but not particularly in other genres like, action games or RPGs.
“About a year ago we bought a company called Aquria, a studio that makes RPG games. Because of that, we were able to expand our development environment, and now we are getting more people who have expertise in different fields.
We are at the stage where we are trying to incorporate both expertises into something else and try to see what we can do. Currently, I think Arc System Works is in a phase of running a lot of different trials. And once I think we are more confident, then we might be able to work on bigger projects, and that’s something that I’m really looking forward to. And as a Guilty Gear Producer, I’m always looking forward to making Guilty Gear games in different genres.”
Arc System WorksThe Guilty Gear team is hard at work on its next character – and there’s much more to come.
For now, fans are left waiting on Lucy as the game’s next character. It’s been nearly a year since she was revealed at Evo 2024, but Miyauchi says there’s a good reason for that.
Here’s why Lucy is taking so long to create
According to the producer, the Guilty Gear team usually has everything it needs internally. Developers can simply walk up to director Daisuke Ishiwatari and ask questions before returning to their desk, so things operate a lot smoothly — but in Lucy’s case, the team has to go through CD Projekt Red first.
“We have to approach CD Projekt Red for their approval,” he explained. “…I was in the front line of all the feedback, contact, and talking with CDPR. Communicating with them and taking the feedback that I hear to the designers is something that I have to do every time.
“Before that, the team would be just able to just go to Daisuke for their approval. But this time, everything comes to me, and I have to talk to them, so my workload goes up. I’m making sure that I don’t become the bottleneck of the development process.”
That’s not all; Miyauchi also told us that the team members in charge of developing Lucy all played Cyberpunk 2077 to get a better feel of what it’s like to be a netrunner in Night City, adding even more time into her development.
Lucy’s role as a netrunner also makes it a challenge for the team to translate her abilities into physical, hand-to-hand combat — but it’s clear that the Guilty Gear team has put a ton of time and effort into the series’ first-ever guest character, whose trailer is slated to drop at Evo 2025.
