Guilty Gear Strive May Have Extra Beta Following Delay

The Guilty Gear franchise is a series of frenetic fighting games with solid mechanics and anime-styled visuals, and the upcoming Guilty Gear Strive has fans excited. There is a fair amount of new stuff being brought into Guilty Gear Strive, but after an open beta left a few questions about online lobbies and server stability, the game is being retooled. With the extra work being put into the game, developer Arc System Works is considering another beta.

It is not uncommon for video games to be delayed when an initial release date looks a little too good to be true. Video game production is labor-intensive, and with games becoming more complex, hiccups along the way often lead to delays. As an example, Far Cry 6 is in delay purgatory, pushed back from a March release to sometime in September or perhaps even further. Guilty Gear Strive's situation is tied to findings from its open beta, and wanting to address the player feedback.

Knowing that Guilty Gear is a franchise integral to the fighting game scene, Arc System Works is taking its time to get its latest entry right. Guilty Gear Strive's beta revealed a weakness in the online aspects of the game's design. While the fighting mechanics appear to be solid as ever, if players can't queue up in a match properly or if fights are ruined by lag or server instability, Guilty Gear Strive could be abandoned quickly.

With that kind of pressure to deliver, Arc System Works is taking the extra time to get the game up to shape. The possibility of running another open beta was floated at the New Game+ Expo, and with Guilty Gear Strive now delayed until June, that allows for enough time to do so. Another beta would likely be the last chance to get player feedback before fans would begin to grumble about repeated delays, so getting the pieces that were lacking in the previous beta in good working order will be key.

Arc System Works previously announced it was testing rollback netcode on an older Guilty Gear release, which works to predict player inputs and makes for a smoother online experience. If something like this is added to Guilty Gear Strive without being detrimental in other areas of the game, it should help make for a stable, player-friendly release.

Guilty Gear Strive was originally supposed to release in 2020, but developer Arc System Works had to delay the game due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Now the game is set to release on April 9, featuring 15 playable characters with just two newcomers: close-range combat fighter Giovanna and vampire samurai Nagoriyuki. Anji Mito is the 14th character revealed, so it would be safe to assume the final character will arrive sometime between now and April.

The new Guilty Gear Strive trailer starts off by showing Anji Mito in a standoff with Chipp Zanuff before the fan-wielding master beats up on Giovanna, Sol Badguy, Millia Rage, Zato-1, and more. Fans responded in the comments of the trailer posted to youTube sharing their love for developer Arc System Works retaining his original moveset, as well as retaining his tiny glasses and shirtless style.