I love Guilty Gear to death. It’s a series that I’m terrible at, but all the same, its particular brand of edginess has captivated me since my younger teenage years. After being absent for basically an entire console generation as developer Arc System Works developed the Blazblue series, which is also great don’t get me wrong, I’ve been thrilled to see the franchise resurface this decade. The latest entry in the game coming out next year is not yet another update of Xrd but being marketed as the true next installment of the franchise, with producers saying it’s a ‘completely new Guilty Gear’.
Completely new might be a bit of an exaggeration because looking at the trailer it’s mostly the incredibly named Sol Badguy and Ky Kiske fighting, which they’ve done since the beginning. Ky’s back to his old XX era hairstyle though, so who knows if by ‘new’ they mean story-wise or additional mechanics? More importantly, MAY IS BACK and they’ve given her a hoodie! More fighting game characters should have hoodies, and if you take away one thing from this article it should be that. While this trailer’s short, it also announced that the next preview will be revealed in just a couple weeks, so hang tight for more Guilty Gear details.
Arc System Works has been kicking major butt in recent years. Combining franchises like RWBY and Persona, making an actually very good Dragon Ball Z game, and even dipping their toe into Kill La Kill, we’re seeing a lot of quality output from the studio recently. Forever with a slew of upcoming projects on-hand, something like Persona 5 Arena remains a just a dream for now. With Blazblue on the back-burner and this new Guilty Gear taking center stage, Arc has their hands full for the time being. I trust though whatever they put out next will be delightful.
Guilty Gear is supposed to drop sometime next year.