Guilty Gear Strive: Premiere News, and What We Know
Cataloguing new and upcoming information as we approach release
On January 24th, 2021, Arc System Works’ social media channels updated the Guilty Gear Strive website with new information about the online modes and debuted a six-minute-long trailer with a full breakdown of every game mode the title will launch with. Much of the information covered is not new, but we did get to look at some updates and changes to certain existing features- some blatant and some less obvious. (Still, you would be shocked about how many people didn’t know the game’s release date, or that the PC version was launching simultaneously with the console version, or that GGST was a rollback game, or that it wasn’t using GGPO, or that CMZinac was the one working on the netcode… Restating well-known information can often be important.) The following article is a breakdown and compilation of GGST news from the past month.
The Mode page (yes, simply titled “Mode”) was added to the GGST website on January 14th and was our first look at some singleplayer content such as Arcade and Survival Modes, as well as tutorial content like the Tutorial, Mission, and Training Modes. The Tutorial Mode allegedly tailors itself to your skill level as you progress through it, while the Mission Mode gives you specific trials like how they functioned in Guilty Gear Xrd. The Missions can vary from understanding universal tools and mechanics to character-specific matchup knowledge: one of the examples provided on the page is learning how to hit Chipp’s Gamma Blade clone. The Arcade Mode segment here also finally confirmed that the two-on-one tag mode would be a singleplayer-related mode wherein a CPU assist character aids you in fights when you’re at disadvantage. The page also suggests that branching paths similar to the Guilty Gear XX story mode would be making a comeback. Like other fighting games, the Survival Mode is likewise a challenge mode where the player must defeat as many foes as they can- including EX versions of certain opponents- before their health (which does not get restored between games) depletes. Furthermore, the Training Mode screenshots demonstrated a Counter-attack Settings menu, a new feature that can record the training dummy’s reactions after blocking, being hit, on recovery, and so on, as well as a mode that displayed combo paths on-screen.
The Online page debuted ten days later, with three segments talking about the game’s online multiplayer. The first and most important segment discusses the game’s rollback netcode implementation, referring to it as “the same type of network players enjoyed in the previous title [GGXX Accent Core +R on Steam.]” Zack Shini would later clarify on Twitter that it’s not the exact same type of rollback implementation, which should go without saying since GGST is an Unreal Engine 4 game while +R is an eight-year-old 2D pixel-graphics arcade game. While this information is not included in official statements, it’s also important to remember that the in-house rollback implementation for GGST is being helmed by former Killer Instinct developer CMZinac, while the GGPO+R retrofit was done by Team French Caliburst, a small team of fans that ended up being contracted officially by Arc System Works.
The second segment on the page elaborated further on the controversial Online Lobby system first used in the April 2020 Closed Beta Test, which seems to have gone through several iterations since then. While the pixel lobby format is still present, the lobbies themselves now have a variety of backgrounds and the ready-up matchmaking system has implicitly been refined. (In the CBT, there were several bugs due to the automatic nature of the matchmaking system that made it very frustrating to play against other people in highly congested lobbies.) The main Online Lobby system functions in place of a traditional ranked mode, assigning players to a specific floor in the ‘tower’ based on skill, a metric calculated by wins as well as by match performance. Newly added to the tower system is an outdoor floor with pixel cabinets that seems to serve as an unranked public matchmaking mode, as well as a top floor only for high-ranked players. The third segment of the Online page clarified that, for players who weren’t fond of the tower system, they could enter online matchmaking from the main menu or while playing Training Mode without entering the Online Lobby. It also confirmed the inclusion of Player Match rooms for matchmaking between friends, as well as an Online Training setting where both players can spar in a Training Mode room.
The Game Modes Trailer was six minutes long and elaborated on all the above information, dividing it into three segments related to singleplayer, multiplayer, and story content, respectively. The first segment (beginning at around the 1min30sec mark) showed some video footage of the Tutorial, Arcade, Survival, Mission, and Versus Modes. Most of the footage and narration simply reiterated known information from the Mode page on the GGST website. While the Versus mode was the only ‘new’ feature, its functionality is the same as it always has been in all other previous fighting games ever.
The second video segment, beginning roughly at the 2min30sec mark, dove into the online gameplay with a brief segue about the Training Mode. While the video segment here didn’t elaborate on specific features, like the website’s Mode page did by demonstrating the Counter-attack Settings menu, it did show a wide variety of training settings that implicitly confirmed the return of certain mechanics like Stagger, as well as showing new menu options like the previously mentioned Combo Recipe Display. Overall, the new training features are a welcome step above the options found in Rev2, although we still haven’t seen any signs of settings that allow players to view information such as hitboxes or frame data.
The Online Mode segment boasted about the game’s ‘optimized [rollback] netcode’ and re-confirmed crossplay between PS4 and PS5 (but still no information about Steam-PSN crossplay.) The large public lobbies have been furnished in different ways, as demonstrated in the Online page on the website. Furthermore, improved UI elements seem to suggest that you can now interact with the News tab in different ways, such as by viewing player rankings, replays, or even hiding it entirely. Otherwise, the tower system remains the same as it did in the beta, alongside the inclusions of systems discussed on the website’s Online mode page. The Player Match rooms seem to now accommodate a grand total of nine players as well. There is even a new Replay Theater system that allows you to upload your own replays and view those of other players. (When inspecting the UI in the News tab, an announcement can be seen that says, “Guilty Gear -Strive-, available on Feb 05, 2021!” Whether this is a release date for the upcoming open beta or for some other development news is unknown.)
(A bit of a meatier blink-and-you’ll-miss-it discovery in this part of the video seems to confirm the return of the traditional Dust button. In builds of GGST prior to the Developer’s Backyard Live version, Dust only triggered the upward launcher on counter-hit or high RISC. In the Replay Theater segment, Sol hits Potemkin with a standing Dust that launches Potemkin without being either a counter-hit or a confirm off high RISC gauge. Players from the Dev Backyard Live have mentioned that a held Dust input functions like traditional Dust from prior games, so it is likely that this is what is happening in the video.)
The final segment of the video elaborates on the game’s Story Mode, which functions like the long visual-novel-style cinematic story from Xrd. While there’s nothing especially groundbreaking of note here, the story certainly looks gorgeous, and the trailer promises a conclusion to Sol Badguy’s narrative. Much like Xrd and other prior titles, GGST will include a GG World glossary mode and a Gallery Mode with cutscenes, concept art, and music from older games. The trailer ends by reiterating the game’s release date- April 9th, 2021- alongside certain bonus editions.
In conclusion: What We Know
- Guilty Gear Strive will debut on PS4, PS5, Steam, and in arcades on April 9th, 2021.
- PS4 and PS5 players who purchase the Deluxe or Ultimate editions of GGST will get early access to the game’s offline modes and the Story Mode prologue, available on April 6th, 2021. Preorders of any digital version of GGST on PSN will include an additional day of early access to the Open Beta Test, date TBD.
- The Deluxe version of the game includes the first Season Pass, which is also sold separately. All versions of the game purchased until April 23rd will include special palettes for Sol and Ky that swap their respective colors.
- Preorders have not opened yet for the Steam version of the game, preorder window date TBD. The Ultimate edition of the game, which includes a digital OST and art collection, as well as bonus color palettes for the base roster, is also PSN only.
- Most of the features and modes that have been announced and displayed are returning features from prior Guilty Gear titles that have been iterated upon. By examining images and videos further, we can see newly added features in modes such as Training and Mission mode that make studying and practicing the game easier. We can also do the same to examine gameplay and see that the game engine and UI have been iterated on substantially since the last time players had access to the game, i.e., April 2020.
- The game will have an in-house rollback solution developed in collaboration with networking engineers who are familiar with the technology. While the retrofitted rollback in +R is not completely identical to GGST’s UE4 rollback solution, the former is being advertised as a selling point for the latter and is also likely a testbed for ASW to see how the functionality works, both mechanically and for player retention. Furthermore, while Zinac’s team working on GGST and TFC do not seem to share any overlap, he recently petitioned all participants of Frosty Faustings XIII’s +R bracket to forward him any feedback about the game’s online play, so perhaps there are indeed some developmental similarities between the two.
- As mentioned in the November Developer’s Backyard, the PS4 and PS5 versions of the game will be able to play with each other via crossplay, but PSN-Steam crossplay will not be available at launch. Akira Katano of ASW has stated that they are working on bridging that gap after the initial release.
- While the pixel lobby navigation is still in place, there have been new iterations of the online lobbies that allow players to match together regardless of rank, as well as modes that allow you to avoid the lobbies altogether.
- As of the Anji Mito character trailer, there is only one base roster slot left for a total of 15 characters. The final character is slated for a February 2021 reveal, and the News tab in screenshots of the online lobby has an Easter egg about… something… that may or may not be revealed on February 5th, 2021.
With April just around the corner, there’s less than two months until GGST launches. We can hopefully expect more news throughout the month of February as we near release date. We can also anticipate getting to experience a newly improved version of the game with updated UI, online quality of life, additional modes, and the recently completed rollback implementation. I personally am looking forward to trying out newly added characters that weren’t in the first CBT, especially original characters like Nagoriyuki and Giovanna.
