Latest news with #GuiltyGearStrive
Forbes
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Ken Miyauchi On ‘Guilty Gear Strive' And The Future Of The Series
'Guilty Gear Strive' was recently released on the Switch. I recently caught up with Arc System Works producer Ken Miyauchi and discussed the recent Switch release of Guilty Gear Strive, as well as the future of the fighting game series. As a new member of the team at Arc System Works, I was curious about Miyauchi's background. 'Originally, I worked for a company in Japan that dealt with social infrastructure and had no connection to the gaming industry. While I was a university student living on the East Coast of the United States, I was deeply moved by Arc System Works' fighting games. In 2018, Arc System Works was looking for talent to help with global expansion, so I applied for a game producer position. 'After joining the company, I was initially assigned to the development department. In my first year, I worked as a game designer, debugging various titles and designing battle mechanics for a game called Wizard's Symphony. In my second year, I became an associate producer under Takeshi Yamanaka, who was the producer of Guilty Gear at the time, and I worked in the Overseas Business Division, strategizing global expansion plans for Arc System Works titles. 'In 2020, I was stationed at Arc System Works America, where I managed local operations while also planning promotional activities for our titles in North America. Since 2022, I have taken over as the producer of Guilty Gear Strive, succeeding Yamanaka.' Compared to previous games in the Guilty Gear series, I wondered what Miyachi thought made Guilty Gear Strive stand out. 'One of the most immediately noticeable aspects is its unique visual style. While 3D graphics designed to look like cel-shaded anime have become more common in the gaming industry, I believe Guilty Gear Strive still goes a step further. The game's animations are not driven by physics-based simulations, which allows for a level of expressive animation that sets it apart from other titles. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder 'Additionally, the game features high-speed action with intense battles involving swords, guns, and magic. Despite the fast-paced gameplay, the animations are designed to maintain clarity, making it easy to follow the action while still delivering a sense of power and excitement. The inclusion of vocal themes for each character and the passionate fanbase also contribute to the game's unique appeal.' With the recent release of Guilty Gear Strive on the Switch, I asked what were Miyauchi's hopes for it. 'Nintendo Switch caters to a different audience compared to platforms like PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam, where Guilty Gear Strive was originally released. Many Switch players tend to engage with games in a more casual way. While Guilty Gear Strive has significantly increased the franchise's recognition, we believe there are still untapped audiences, particularly those who primarily play on Switch or mobile devices. Getting 'Guilty Gear Strive' to work on the Switch was handled by an Australian studio. 'The Nintendo Switch Edition serves as a stepping stone to reach this new demographic and expand the potential player base for future Guilty Gear titles. We hope this release will bring the Guilty Gear experience to an even wider audience. 'Since Guilty Gear Strive was not originally developed with the Nintendo Switch in mind, significant optimization was necessary in terms of graphics, memory usage, and overall game size. As a company, we initially assessed that a direct port without visual downgrades would not be feasible. 'Additionally, since the development team was already busy with seasonal updates, we could not handle the Switch port internally. Finding an external development studio capable of delivering a high-quality port was our biggest challenge. Eventually, we found a capable studio in Australia that had confidence in their ability to handle the project. 'However, since they did not speak Japanese, I took on the role of director for the port, ensuring that the main development team could continue working on seasonal updates without being affected by the porting process. It was a challenging yet rewarding experience. Finishing up, I wanted to know what the future held for the Guilty Gear series. 'In June 2025, Guilty Gear Strive will celebrate its fourth anniversary, and Season 4 will bring an exciting finale with the series' first-ever guest character, Lucy from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. By that time, her development will be nearing completion, and aiming for her release in the Summer. 'While we can't share details about what comes next just yet, the fact that we've been able to reach Season 4 is thanks to the incredible support from our fans. We hope that with your continued support, we can bring even more exciting developments in the future. 'Thank you for being part of the Guilty Gear community, and we hope you continue to enjoy Guilty Gear Strive.' Guilty Gear Strive is now available to play on Nintendo Switch. If you are curious to find out more about the history behind Arc System Works and the Guilty Gear series, then feel free to check out one of my older interviews here. Follow me on X, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and am currently featured in the Giant Robots exhibition currently touring Japan.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Assassin's Creed Shadows has landed some solid success on online storefronts, and an overall decent critical reception. PC Gamer's own Morgan Park gave it an 80 in his review, which is none too shabby. To celebrate, Ubisoft has gone from avoiding treading on eggshells, to getting its biggest, chunkiest eggshell-stomping boots and marauding through an eggshell field while laughing uproariously, scoring one of the biggest ratios I think I've ever seen on social media. For context: Ubisoft has found itself in the unenviable position of being caught in the midst of an ongoing culture war over whether videogames are woke or not—woke, generally speaking, meaning anything with the wrong shape of woman or a pronoun selection screen or a Black person or a consulting company present during its development. That is to say, it's a word that's lost most of its meaning. This time, they were bristling over the inclusion of historical Black samurai Yasuke—never mind that over-the-top historical fiction is the series' thing (Leonardo Da Vinci, you'd be surprised to find out, never built a working tank) nor the fact that Yasuke, and characters inspired by him, have both popped up repeatedly in Japanese anime and videogames. My favourite, by far, is Guilty Gear Strive, where his expy is a big vampire man with a skull mask and a banging theme song. Ubisoft's initial response to this was to try and meet these naysayers halfway. It held up its hands and stated that Yasuke's position in history was "a matter of debate and discussion". Later, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot would also try to reassure folks that the studio wasn't trying to "push any specific agenda". It wouldn't be until November that the tone would change, with franchise head Marc-Alexis Coté stating: "We all however face the added challenge of distinguishing between genuine feedback and attacks driven by intolerance. The current climate is tough on our creative teams. They face lies, half truths and personal attacks online." Now that the game is out, though? Ubisoft's gone from stoic but firm rebuttals to publicly clowning on a tech billionaire. Elon Musk, owner of the platform this happened on and self-admitted supporter of Path of Exile 2's account-trading industry, has been particularly vocal about Assassin's Creed Shadows. Writing, in June of last year, that "DEI kills art". He's been particularly vocal in the following X thread, too, coming after a streamer who'd done a paid promotion for the game. "Hasan is a fraud," Musk writes, producing his blade and levelling it at his enemy. "'Sell-out' would be more accurate. Objectively, he is promoting a terrible game just for the money." The official Assassin's Creed account, liberating its own steel free from the prison of its sheath, retorts: "Is that what the guy playing your Path of Exile 2 account told you?" Both stand at the ready. The setting sun bleeds red into the sky, bearing witness to their duel. Reeds sway in the breeze. Elon Musk and the Assassin's Creed Shadows X account flash towards each other. There's a blinding shock of light. As they stagger from the momentum, Elon Musk's post accrues 23,000 likes—a superficial blow. In true Samurai movie fashion, he then looks down to see the effect of his opponent's strike, as over the next 14 hours the Assassin's Creed Shadows account rakes in upwards of 440,000 likes, nonchalantly sheathing its katana with a satisfying click. To put that in perspective, the Stade de France, which hosted the 2024 Olympics, has a seating capacity of around 80,000 people. The likes on the account's reply could fill up that stadium 5.5 times. The likes on Elon Musk's post wouldn't even book half the seats. 440,000 is a comparable amount, also, to EA's legendarily flubbed Reddit comment, "A sense of pride and accomplishment", which tanked over 600,000 downvotes circa 2017. The account would then later double down, quoting its own post with the following: "Where other men blindly follow the truth... Remember, nothing is true," a maxim of the series' titular assassin's creed. Even some of the quotes cheering Musk on are taking his lunch money. "$44 billion to get cooked on your own website," writes one spectator, to the tune of 190,000 likes (around 2.3 Stade de Frances). While I am quietly and respectfully amused by this development, I think the fact that Ubisoft appears to've stopped giving a crap is the takeaway here. Though it's pretty significant that over 440,000 people are also fed up with the outrage tourism, too. The game's out, and as Morgan said in his review, "Is Shadows fun? I'm so glad that one is an easy yes." Nobody—least of all Ubisoft's shareholders—have to wring their hands anymore. As a matter of fact, the gloves seem off entirely. AC Shadows review: Late bloomerBest AC Shadows weapons: Superior firepowerBest AC Shadows armour: The best threadsBest AC Shadows skills: Level upAC Shadows scouts: Get more trusty reconsAC Shadows rations: Get more healing itemsAC Shadows Shadow Projects: Free loot
