“Our lead artist, Hidehiko Sakamura, is a big fan of the Witcher series. We originally wanted to reach out to CD Projekt to see if we were able to bring in either Geralt or Ciri from The Witcher 3,” Miyauchi-san reveals. “At that time, CD Projekt was actually working on The Witcher 4. They were telling us that a lot of changes were going on around Ciri. To make sure that they could keep the series’ branding consistent, they didn’t want to put the IP out to different IPs at that moment.”
This early effort to add Ciri or Geralt in Guilty Gear Strive led to continued discussions between Arc System Works and CD Projekt Red, with Miyauchi-san speaking directly with CD Projekt’s Japan country manager Honma Satoru. With Satoru-san also a producer on Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, he recommended the Strive development team also consider crossing over with CD Projekt’s ambitious sci-fi franchise. Looking to introduce a unique character unlike any other previously established fighter in the Guilty Gear franchise, Arc System Works contemplated the inclusion of other Cyberpunk characters in Strive before deciding Lucy Kushinada was the best fit.
“We were thinking about maybe bringing in Johnny Silverhand or V from the game. Of course, in the game itself, the main character is the player so it’s hard to characterize that into a fighting game,” recalls Miyauchi-san. “We ended up picking a character from Edgerunners, looking into the characters, and we ultimately decided to pick Lucy.”
With a fifth season of DLC confirmed at Evo 2025 and Guilty Gear Strive ported to the Nintendo Switch at the beginning of the year, Arc System Works is still hard at work building out the popular title’s ongoing growth and strong place within the fighting game community. While there have been no officially confirmed plans for a sequel or standalone follow-up, Miyauchi-san has been talking about his observations of Strive closely with its director Akira Katano. These conversations have naturally included what the two would do if given the opportunity to work on a potential new Guilty Gear title.
“There were a lot of experimental things that we tried to do, seeing what could work better. We’re doing a lot of post-mortem right now, seeing what worked, what was really received well, what wasn’t received well, going over what was discussed within the community,” Miyauchi-san observes. “If we have another chance to make a new Guilty Gear game, what could be done better is something that we’ve discussed internally a lot.”
Guilty Gear Strive is available now for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Lucy Kushinada, the final character in Season 4 will be released August 21. A fifth season of DLC is currently in development.
