Guilty Gear Strive Finally Adds The Most Important Function
Thanks to a new update from the developer, Guilty Gear Strive now has cross-platform play available, among other new features.
Developer Arc System Works has released a new update for Guilty Gear Strive — a gorgeous-looking anime fighter game — bringing a plethora of new features to the game. Those in love with Guilty Gear Strive’s fighting aspect actually celebrate the introduction of one of the most important functions in modern gaming — cross-platform play. But that’s not all; the game also received plenty of “under the hood” updates.
According to Destructoid, Guilty Gear Strive version 1.2.4 now features crossplay support between consoles and the PC version of the game. This allows for online matches across different platforms, allowing gamers to view ranking, replays, and creations for Combo Maker and Digital Figure of players cross-platform. Crossplay refers to online play between PlayStation consoles and the Steam version of the game, and it’s entirely up to players whether they want to use it or not.
It’s worth mentioning that the crossplay option is turned on by default.
But allowing cross-platform players to step into the ring against one another isn’t the only addition to the game. In-game multiplayer lobby and spectating are also added. However, Guilty Gear Strive also received a whole litany of balance tweaks to its character roster, mechanics adjustments, and damage scaling.
In fact, most of the characters were boosted rather than having OP (overpowered) characters nerfed. That’s a pretty solid strategy for a fighter game — just make it as fast, bloody, and flashy as possible.
Besides in-game mechanics, Guilty Gear Strive also got a whole package of updates to its user interface, menu fixes, audio fixes, and several other bugs that were plaguing the game. Arc System Works also added a “Report” feature that allows players to call out any cheating or other toxic gaming behavior, and the company promises to inspect dubious player behavior from multiple standpoints to prevent abuse of the said feature. Gamers are a weird bunch, and they’re at the top of the world while winning, but once humbled, they have no issue branding the competition as cheaters.
With so many titles losing support from their developers — like 2020’s Marvel’s Avengers — it’s nice to see a game developer that actually takes good care of its release. Adding crossplay functionality to Guilty Gear Strive will definitely prolong the title’s lifespan into 2023 and quite possibly beyond that, as it widens the player pool and offers players the opportunity to widen their online battle experience, just in time for when the upcoming Xbox version of the game drops — it’s scheduled for spring 2023 along with Xbox’s price increase.
Porting Guilty Gear Strive to Xbox is likely going to increase the player count further, which will only fuel further development of the fast-paced anime-looking fighter. So much so that it might even hold its ground against larger releases scheduled for next year, including Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8. The former is released with updated multiplayer features, while the latter re-introduces characters the fandom last saw some 27 years ago.
Last year’s Guilty Gear Strive is currently available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC platforms via Steam.
