Guilty Gear Creator Reflects Back on Two Years of Strive

Guilty Gear series creator, Daisuke Ishiwatari, is a legend in the world of Fighting Games. He’s designed some of the most memorable fighting game characters ever, written some of the best fighting game music of all time, and has been active in the scene since the late 90s. Which was why at the Arc World Tour Finals, when presented with the opportunity to pick his brain in an interview, I leapt at the opportunity.

IGN: It’s been almost two years since the release of Guilty Gear Strive. Reflecting back, what is something that you’re especially proud of with the game? And on the flip side of that, what’s something that you kind of wish that you could have done differently or maybe better?

Ishiwatari-san: I could say a lot of things on both ends with regards to things that I am proud of. While it’s not necessarily part of the game, it’s more on the production side of things, I’m rather proud of being able to gather together so many talented members to put this whole project together.

IGN: And then is there anything that you think you would like to have done differently or anything on that side of it?

Ishiwatari-san: So how do I put it? Amongst different I guess you would say, competitive games, fighting games in particular have a high bar of entry. It’s really hard for new people to join in on that. So if there’s something that I wish I could do better next time, it’s to make that a lot easier. Make it easier and simpler for people to be able to just join in the game and really start to enjoy fighting games.

IGN: Previous Arcsys fighting games have had multiple iterations of a base game, like with Xrd you had Rev and Rev 2. Is this something that you see happening for Strive, or do season passes and free updates kind of fill that role?

Ishiwatari-san: While there probably isn’t going to be a physical upgrade like how we did with Rev and Rev 2, using kind of season pass and upgrading what’s in the game season by season seems to be the way that we want to go.

IGN: You’ve added a ton of things to Strive over the last two years from the digital figure mode, the combo maker and recently to cross play. Do you feel like Strive is feature complete at this point, or are there still new features outside the ones that affect the core gameplay that you’re still looking to add or change?

Ishiwatari-san: It’s not so much a question of are we finished, it’s more a question of do we have the resources to put into these ideas? Of course there’s a lot of things that we want to put in, a lot of things that we want to change and add in for the players and their satisfaction. But that’s something to kind of decide as development progresses.

IGN: You’ve been making games for a long time at this point. Do you think it’s gotten easier or harder to make a fighting game in 2023 versus how it was in the late 90’s?

Ishiwatari-san: So it’s rather a difficult question, but if you want to compare it, how you make things now is: You have specialized teams, specialized people working on individual parts of putting the game together. And in that sense it is easier to make the game. But back when you first started making games, it’s very much like how the indie scene is today where you have a small team, everybody collaborating, putting together all they can, all the skills and resources to make something happen. And while that may be more difficult in general, for me it’s much more easier, a much preferred way of putting games together

IGN: What’s your feeling on the state of fighting games in 2023? It feels like it’s a very exciting time with a new Street Fighter, a new Mortal Kombat, and potentially a new Tekken all coming out this year. What’s your current thoughts on the state of fighting games in 2023?

Ishiwatari-san: A little difficult to put [into words], but basically instead of looking at it more like what is the state of fighting games, I look at it kind of like… fighting games, are a difficult medium to jump into, a difficult platform to just jump into. And so I look to a lot of games like Splatoon where people can just pick it up, go, have fun. And while that’s a focus of mine, something else I’ve really wanted to consider is from a sales standpoint is how do you go from here? Do you evolve what the game is, what the platform is, take it to another level? Or do you continue to push the standards of what already is? And so those are my thoughts on it. It is that it’s a consideration of either evolving the medium, continuing on the medium, while also considering of course making it easier for new people to step into the genre.

Do you evolve what the game is? What the platform is? Take it to another level? Or do you continue to push the standards of what already is?

IGN: Where do you see the biggest opportunity for growth within the fighting game genre? Is it the onboarding? Is it teaching new people how to play? Or are there other areas you think that fighting games can still evolve?

Ishiwatari-san: If you think about, for example, chess. Chess is a strategy game, and the way strategy games have kind of evolved is nowadays you have things like RTSs and similar computer games that have these same basic principles of strategy. But because those games exist doesn’t mean that chess and the people who play chess no longer do that. It’s still something that people enjoy, something that people still continue to do, even at a competitive level.

So that ends up becoming something that all developers kind of think and worry about. Do you keep making the same type of thing that everybody knows and loves? Do you take it to the next level? And what impact will that have on getting players in, keeping the genre going, that sort of thing. So it’s actually something all developers, not just Arc System Works, but all developers are considering at the moment.

IGN: And then finally, I wanted to ask you about the new character Bedman?, a character that was previously in Guilty Xrd. How is the character different in Strive and what were some of the challenges involved with taking that character, who is so complicated, into a new fighting game system in Strive?

Ishiwatari-san: I guess from a design standpoint of transferring the character into Strive, yeah in Xrd there was Bedman who was on their bed, but since the character perished in that story it’s just the bed remaining. And what I wanted to do was kind of take a little bit of inspiration from Annabelle and say the kind of fractured feeling of Bedman is still remaining inside the bed itself. So from a design standpoint, that’s the basic backbone of the character.

At this point, producer Ken Miyauchi stepped in to answer the rest of the question.

Miyauchi-san: So let me take that question. So the design of Bedman, I would say it’s not as complex as the Xrd Bedman, but he does have quite a few unique movement actions. So he’s not the kind of easy character you can just pick up and play. Compared with the previous character, Sin, he does have a lot of advanced techniques and a very unique move that the other character doesn’t have. So in terms of difficulty, he is a little difficult character to pick up.

Bedman?, the latest character in Guilty Gear Strive is available now as the third of four planned characters for season 2. Thanks to Ishiwatari-san and Miyauchi-san for their time.

Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit