Rooflemonger Arc World Tour Finals 2023 Developer Interview
An interview held at Arc World Tour Finals 2023 with Ken Miyauchi, Akira Katano and Daisuke Ishiwatari hosted and uploaded on the channel of the YouTuber Rooflemonger on March 22nd, 2024. Rooflemonger got to interview the team of Guilty Gear -Strive- as well as French Bread regarding Under Night In-Birth 2. This article will only cover the Guilty Gear portion. Due to technical issues, no direct recording or transcript of the full interviews are available, with Rooflemonger simply paraphrasing the answers given by the translators.[1]
Questions
Why pick A.B.A as the next character?
Rooflemonger: The response I got was simply that they never got a chance to put A.B.A into Xrd. She sorta missed a like a whole generation of the game, you know, she was playable in the X2 franchise and Guilty Gear Isuka, but as far as Xrd goes she was MIA, so it's been a very long time since players last seen her. They also wanted to add her as a bit of a surprise. Also adding that besides that, the way she plays and how she just contributes to the overall game flow is very different than a lot of the cast so they wanted to add her just to bring even more gameplay diversity to the overall roster of the game.
Then, however, they added a dark secret that I did not know, and now you're gonna find out as well. So you may recall that there was the character popularity poll, right? They did the survey, "What characters would you like to see?" and for the majority of the world, A.B.A was either ranked number 1 or number 2. I saw when A.B.A got annouced on Twitter, like you know, they're just saying "Well this is why she was there," right. Because she won the polls. She was the head of the polls, so that's why they made her, and that actually had absolutely nothing to do with that. The secret to A.B.A, as was revealed to me by the developers themselves, is they were already working on her well before the survey results ever came in. They had no idea A.B.A would be topping the charts. She was just already being worked on, right. Now that said, when the numbers came in they were very happy A.B.A was very popular, you know, good reassurance, that (they) made the right call on the character, I guess. But the survey itself had nothing to do with it cause the work was already well underway. Now that said, they do stay on the surveys. They're very glad to get the surveys, and they do listen to the surveys so don't take it that they're not listening because they are, but in this specific case, A.B.A was already a done deal before the surveys were ever a thing. But once again, I'll stress, just cause they wanted to stress to me, the surveys do carry a lot of weight so keep entering the surveys.
Will Leopaldon ever return?
Rooflemonger: Is there a ever chance for other characters like the mighty Leopaldon to ever return?
Miyauchi: (Smiles)
Ishiwatari: (Laughs)
Rooflemonger: I got a very diplomatic answer back that no character is out of the question. There are many things to consider such as development costs, and demand from the community. It's something they would like to consider, so... Leopaldon community, this is your chance! Make your voices heard. You can never count out a good gorilla whale bondage dog wizard.
On screen addendum: Daisuke would like to add: His personal character he would like to see back is 2cave!
A.B.A's new look
Rooflemonger: Next up I asked about A.B.A's new look. obviously some new threads but longer hair green hair, right, so kind of changed up, and they did hear about the copper hair rumor which they like, but the fact that they called that rumor means to me that I guess it's technically not canon. So the answer that was given to me is it's been quite some time since the last like story edition of A.B.A, so nowadays she's very much in contact with the outside world, and she's really into things like fashion and beauty. She's experimenting around trying to find her own personal identity through things like changing her look her hair and all that. So once again she's a bit of a lab experiment gone wrong if you will so, basically she's just trying to find herself and new looks is part of it.
Adding new moves to Guilty Gear Strive Season 3
Rooflemonger: Next I asked was about adding new moves in season 3 of Guilty Gear Strive. If you're unaware many core original characters are getting all new moves, all new animations and just kind of really changing up how things work. Like I think Potemkin is a really good example of that, and the answer I got on why they're doing exactly this is, well, one, just to make the characters more fun, and it's a good way to change up a character in a way that like a simple balance change like tweaking the frame data or a hitbox on a move can't exactly accomplish, and that it's also frankly, and I can't disagree, a way to breathe new life into characters. You see that this patch may give them a new move, and then you're inspired to check them out again if you weren't already playing that character. They did state you know purely from a balanced perspective, you know, some characters could use new things more than others, so characters that are sort of better off than you know the rest, they're not necessarily as much of a focus as much of priority right now. Also going on to stress that just adding the new moves isn't there just to make the character good at something they happen to be bad. This is an enhancement of the characters rather than just, you know, plugging holes in their existing game plan. Just because character a may be bad at XYZ, the move doesn't exist just to make them good at it. But yeah one of the main priorities, obviously, you know, balance, right? but also they just want to make the characters even cooler than they already are.
Guilty Gear Story Additions?
Rooflemonger: After that I asked about the Story Mode so obviously Guilty Gear Strive has a very long very elaborate sort of visual novel style story mode, which I love by the way, and we even had as a DLC, the Another Story, that sort of focused on Delilah and Sin, and will there be anything else like that in the future. And just to add, Daisuke was very happy I asked about the story, he was sort of beaming about it. But so the answer I got back, is a one where they feel like they're not saying everything, but not saying everything says a lot, right? So they stated there is a lot of story elements that the fans have yet to see. Lots of characters that have yet to deliver their personal story. There is plans to tell these stories of all the different characters, but what form that will take they cannot say just yet, so sort of a non answer but also a very big answer also in a big way, so I'm not sure exactly what they're hinting at, but safe to say given the answer we haven't exactly seen the last of the Guilty Gear characters and their wacky stories. now the next two questions
Whats Next for Arc System Works?
Rooflemonger: Now the next two questions, I had to ask sort of rapid fire. I didn't expect big answers, because of course I couldn't, but I feel like we got some answers in there so the first thing was "What are the plans for Guilty Gear Strive after Season 3?" Which got a big laugh and basically they said they cannot say anything at this this time, but we may be able to find out soon, and hey, fair enough. They're not exactly going to spill the beans at this time, right? And after that directly was "What is the future for Arc System Works?" and the response I got back was "It's difficult to answer at this time as it's confidential" and hey, sure enough right? So, Guilty Gear and Arc System Works has grown with the community, and going forward in the future they want to keep continuing honing their skills as a major fighting game developer, and basically look forward to what they have in the future. Obviously, they're not going to announce their plans through me in this interview, right? But still, I think it's safe to say, rest assured, there is plans for the future they still got plenty of stuff to come.