We talked with Ken Miyauchi, the producer of Guilty Gear Strive. He shared thoughts on the future of this fighting game. He mentioned something big is coming that will surprise everyone.

Guilty Gear Strive came out in 2021. It gave fighting game fans a lot to enjoy during the tough pandemic times. The beautiful new graphics and fresh characters from Arc System Works made it popular right away.

Four years have passed since then. Fans wonder what direction the game will take. They want to know the plan for Strive, especially with changes at Arc System Works.

For example, the studio is trying new types of games. They released a story adventure called Dear Me, I was… and an action game named Damon and Baby. They also added Lucy, the first guest character from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, in 2024.

Arc System Works Plans Something Big for Guilty Gear Strive

The team is also working on Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. Things are busy at Arc System Works. But Miyauchi says that includes good news for Strive.

I can’t talk too much about it, but we do have a plan,” he told us at Anime Expo 2025. “Some people might be thinking, ‘Well, Guilty Gear Strive will not have any more updates after the end of season four,’ because we still haven’t announced anything yet. But that’s actually not true.

“I can’t say what our plans are right now, but I’m preparing something big and exciting that people probably won’t expect. They won’t know what we have in mind, or what we’re preparing.

“Because we’ve recently announced a fighting game with a different IP, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, and a lot of Guilty Gear Strive players might be worried that the game is gonna end. But that’s actually not true, so don’t worry about it.”

Strive Producer Eyes New Game Types Using Guilty Gear Brand

Miyauchi did not give more details. But he said he likes the idea of using Guilty Gear in other game styles. Still, with many projects at Arc System Works, he does not know if or when it will happen.

“It’s unpredictable,” he admitted. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but one good thing that I’m possibly thinking is that, since we’re experts on making fighting games, but not particularly in other genres like, action games or RPGs.

“About a year ago we bought a company called Aquria, a studio that makes RPG games. Because of that, we were able to expand our development environment, and now we are getting more people who have expertise in different fields.

We are at the stage where we are trying to incorporate both expertises into something else and try to see what we can do. Currently, I think Arc System Works is in a phase of running a lot of different trials. And once I think we are more confident, then we might be able to work on bigger projects, and that’s something that I’m really looking forward to. And as a Guilty Gear Producer, I’m always looking forward to making Guilty Gear games in different genres.”

The Guilty Gear team is hard at work on its next character – and there’s much more to come.

For now, fans wait for Lucy to join as the next fighter. It has been almost a year since her reveal at Evo 2024. But Miyauchi explained there is a good reason for the delay.

Reasons Lucy’s Development Is Taking Time

The producer said the Guilty Gear team usually handles everything inside the studio. They can ask director Daisuke Ishiwatari questions easily and get back to work fast. But for Lucy, they must get approval from CD Projekt Red first.

“We have to approach CD Projekt Red for their approval,” he explained. “…I was in the front line of all the feedback, contact, and talking with CDPR. Communicating with them and taking the feedback that I hear to the designers is something that I have to do every time.

“Before that, the team would be just able to just go to Daisuke for their approval. But this time, everything comes to me, and I have to talk to them, so my workload goes up. I’m making sure that I don’t become the bottleneck of the development process.”

That is not all. Miyauchi said the developers working on Lucy played Cyberpunk 2077. They did this to understand what it is like to be a netrunner in Night City. This added more time to her creation.

Lucy’s skills as a netrunner make it hard to turn them into close-up fights. But the team has spent a lot of effort on this first guest character. Her trailer will appear at Evo 2025.