There’s some hope that Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, the recently announced 4v4 tag fighter starring iconic Marvel heroes, could appear. Launching in 2026 for PS5 and PC, it’s a collaboration between ArcSys, Marvel Games and PlayStation Studios.

Other potential announcements could include a release date for Lucy from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners in Guilty Gear Strive. She’s out this Summer, and thus far, we’ve yet to see her in-game look or how she fights. This will be the second video game collaboration for the anime, with another due next year in Kuro Games’ Wuthering Waves.

There could also be announcements for Hunter x Hunter: Nen x Impact, developed by Eighting, and Double Dragon Revive from Yuke’s, both launching this year and published by Arc System Works. Stay tuned for more updates in the meantime.

The fighter has gotten a host of post-launch fighters, and are currently on Season 3. A guest character was teased within this season, and it’s now been revealed to be Baiken. The character originally appeared in the first game in the Guilty Gear franchise as a secret character, and has made appearances in multiple entries afterward. As you can see from the trailer below, she fits in well, using swift sword attacks, and fancy specials inspired from her own series.

Samurai Shodown is available now on most major platforms. Baiken will be available as part of season 3 or downloadable separately on August 19th. The latest entry in the Guilty Gear series, Strive, is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and PC.

EVO 2018 saw a boat-load of big announcements, including the arrival of Cooler to Dragon Ball FighterZ. Arc System Works had a whole lot more to discuss, including the announcement of its Arc Revo World Tour, which you can see the trailer for below.

The Arc Revo World Tour is essentially a tournament with over $100,000 in prizes, and takes place from Fall 2018 to Fall 2019. Featured games include Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2, BlazBlue: Central Fiction and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, with qualifying tournaments to be held around the world.

But that’s not all. Arc System Works CEO Minoru Kidooka revealed that Guilty Gear director Daisuke Ishiwatari was unable to attend the event because he was “working really, really hard right now at the office on something Guilty Gear“. This could be interpreted in different ways, like new Guilty Gear content, possibly for Guilty Gear Xrd, or even a brand new game. At this point, it’s hard to say.

Regardless, Arc System Works does have new content coming to BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle, not to mention a beta for Dragon Ball FighterZ on the Switch, so there’s plenty to be excited for. What do you hope for the future of Guilty Gear? Let us know below.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of Guilty Gear‘s release. Arc Systems Works’ sprite based fighting game franchise started all the way back on the original PlayStation- and now, to commemorate the occasion of the franchise’s 20th anniversary, the developer has announced that it will be releasing the original Guilty Gear for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The original Guilty Gear was… not as good as the sequels that would follow, but it’s still a curio for fighting game enthusiasts to hold on to. As long as it is priced well, I see no reason for this port to not do well. That is assuming that there won’t be any changes made to the original title- if there are, Arc could probably get away with pricing the game more expensively.

If you want some modern Arc Systems Works goodness, Dragon Ball FighterZ is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, while BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle launches at the end of this month for PS4 and Nintendo Switch.

Guilty Gear Series

Arc System Works had more of a niche following with the Guilty Gear series. However, over the years, the combat’s complexity and outright insanity has attracted more players. For example, Guilty Gear Xrd utilizes a number of basic commands like punching, kicking, slashing and heavy slashing. It’s in the combination of these commands that special things happen like Psych Bursts to escape opponents or special Tension Gauge attacks. Along with a crazy story mode, Guilty Gear Xrd further incentivizes survival mode with M.O.M., offering an almost RPG-like progression system and leveling. Though tough to ultimately master, Guilty Gear’s combat shouldn’t be missed.

Dark Samus (Hypermode) – Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Dark Samus can be quite the annoyance when you’re trying to wrap up Samus’s latest adventure. However, play on Hypermode and it’s a whole other ball game. Her attacks can be difficult to dodge, she dishes them out frequently and you then have to deal with another boss right after. Suffice to say, you better know what you’re doing when fighting her.

After the success of Dragon Ball FighterZ, developer Arc System Works will be looking for a better balance in accessibility and depth with its flagship franchise Guilty Gear. Series creator Daisuke Ishiwatari spoke to Destructoid about this and noted how past titles were “too complicated” for some players. The key then is to reduce the number of required systems, streamline gameplay and thus “expand the userbase.”

“After releasing Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 it’s clear what we need to improve on. The key is to win over more users because of the complex controls. But if we implement everything the game will no longer be Guilty Gear. It’s hard to balance out all the improvements.

“One thing that we have to do in the next installment is to reduce the number of systems; it’s too complicated for everyone. You can expect that in the next game,” said Ishiwatari. The series will still “maintain the people we’ve already won over.”

It should be noted that even if pulling off strings of combos and Supers in Dragon Ball FighterZ is easy, fully mastering the combat system to effectively juggle opponents around and go for the truly devastating combos is a lot tougher. If this is brought over to Guilty Gear, you can expect a similar system which will allow new players to jump in more easily while dedicated players take the time to totally master the mechanics.

We’ll have to see how it works and what systems end up being “reduced” in the process but it does sound interesting. What are your thoughts on the same? Let us know below.

The makers of the BlazBlue series announced on Tuesday that they are going to be bringing Chrono Phantasma Extend to Europe later this year. While the company hasn’t said exactly when it will be coming to Europe, or to the United States, PQube did say that this will be the first iteration in the long running series that will be featured on the new generation of consoles which means it will apparently be on the PS4 and the Xbox One both. The company also said it will be coming in both a digital format, as well as a physical format.

The new version of this well loved series is going to be bringing a number of new features with it, including a total of 28 playable characters. That library includes the newest character in Celica A Mercury and fan-favorite Lambda. There is also going to be a focus on Remix Heart, which will bring a special focus on the funny female characters in the series. While the game is going to be focusing on the multiplayer action, with more than 64 lobbies available for a ton of different ways to play with other people, there is also going to be a nice focus on single player.

In fact, the creators of the game have said there is going to be more than 30 hours of single player gameplay.  Everything the game has to offer will be on display when BlazBlue Chrono Phantasma Extend finally hits European shores later this year.

BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend was the last major title from Arc System Works and arguably represents the height of the series. However, creator Toshimichi Mori is already planning the next title. Speaking to Siliconera, Mori said that, “I am planning to have the next story sometime next year and the next game will have the last 25% of the story.” It also seems that it will more than 30 playable characters by the time it comes out.

Mori brought up a rather interesting point of discussion though. “What do the fans think about tag team battles?

“There are two possible options. One is you would pick two or three characters like the Capcom vs. SNK 2 or simply choosing characters and tagging out like Tekken Tag Tournament. In Capcom vs. SNK 2 players choose characters and they come out in a certain order compared to Tekken Tag Tournament which has characters switching in real time. If you consider the PlayStation 4 system, both of these are possible. Those are the two directions I’m considering, what do you think of this? The flashiness might need to be cutdown if we implement this though.”

Finally, if you’re curious about that BlazBlue and Guilty Gear crossover, then you’ll need to keep waiting. “I know the fans want to see a crossover with Guilty Gear but I don’t know how long that will take. If we are going to do it, we want to do it right. Ask Ishiwatari about this later.”

Thoughts on the next BlazBlue and whether tag battles would be welcome? Let us know in the comments.

And he wants it to be a completely new game that will follow BlazBlue, just as that game followed Guilty Gear.

“Yes, we still can’t give you a title name — but we are working on it. We’re a fighting game maker — so we’re thinking of doing a fighting game. I want to make a new title to follow Guilty Gear and BlazBlue — a third title.

“Guilty Gear was made for Dreamcast originally, BlazBlue was meant for PS3 soon after it launched — so now that PS4 is coming out we’d like to make a completely new title for it. Making something at these turning points is what Arc System Works is all about.”

And who knows how they plan to up the ante this time around.