Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s creator reveals he plotted A.B.A\u2019s return for years Arc System WorksI got the chance to speak with the developers of Guilty Gear Strive about why they chose to bring back A.B.A after more than a decade and what they thought about players\u2019 reactions to her big reveal. A.B.A is Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s latest DLC character \u2014 but she isn\u2019t new to the franchise whatsoever. A.B.A was first introduced in Guilty Gear Isuka all the way back in 2004, yet she hasn\u2019t been seen since Accent Core. Now she\u2019s back over a decade after her last series appearance with her trusty axe, Paracelsus, and a fresh new look, ready to rock on March 26. I got to quiz Guilty Gear\u2019s creator, Daisuke Ishiwatari, as well as Strive Developer Akira Katano and Strive Producer Ken Miyauchi about this new character and got a first-hand look at their reactions to players\u2019 response to her return to the series. While speaking with them, I learned that the team actually wanted to include A.B.A on Strive\u2019s roster from the very beginning. However, they were initially worried that players wouldn\u2019t remember her from Accent Core so many years ago. Guilty Gear devs wanted to include A.B.A on Strive\u2019s release \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time since she\u2019s been in a new Guilty Gear game,\u201d Ishiwatari told me. \u201cI wanted to release A.B.A ever since the Strive project started, but we were a little bit behind schedule getting her out. I thought most people wouldn\u2019t know about A.B.A, but after she was released and looking at everyone\u2019s responses, I realized that she\u2019s loved by a lot of players.\u201d It\u2019s true \u2014 Twitter has been alight with love for A.B.A, and YouTube comments underneath her trailer are full fans excited that she\u2019s making a long-awaited comeback to the series. Prior to her release, theories abounded as to which character she might be, with many players using their super-sleuthing skills to try and decipher who was hiding behind the silhouette teased back in February. These theories amused the developers, who have clearly been paying close attention to her reception online. \u201cFrom what I\u2019ve seen, there\u2019s a lot of comments about her visual style and her hair color,\u201d Ishiwatari said. \u201cJust seeing all the theories is very, very interesting, and I see that people have such a wide perspective. Their worldviews are very intriguing. You know, the fact that maybe she\u2019s a homunculus, and her hair is made of copper that\u2019s oxidized and turned blue. Very, very interesting stuff. They\u2019re incorrect, however.\u201d \u201cWe still haven\u2019t actually released the character yet, so people have seen her footage from the demo area and are looking at the character portrait and trying to think about the storyline behind her in Guilty Gear Strive, and people predicting what\u2019s happening to her,\u201d Miyauchi added. \u201cIt\u2019s really fun to read all those ideas and what they\u2019re thinking or what they\u2019re feeling from what we just published as graphics. I\u2019m really excited for them to try out the arcade mode, which has a short story of her background and tells what\u2019s happening to her right now.\u201d Of course, the mountain of fanart that instantly flooded Twitter\/X upon her release didn\u2019t go unnoticed by the devs, who admitted they\u2019re always shocked by such big reactions to nearly every character release that takes place. \u201cThis kind of happens with every character that we release, but we see so much different fan art that comes in within three hours of announcing the character,\u201d Katano laughed. \u201cEvery time I\u2019m just surprised and intrigued by all the beautiful fan art that comes in. Straight away.\u201d \u201cPersonally, what\u2019s really interesting for me is actually that A.B.A is a character that we designed and released 10 years ago,\u201d Ishiwatari interjected. \u201cAnd to see current Guilty Gear Strive players reacting to our design is very interesting to me.\u201d A.B.A officially releases on March 26. Players can nab her individually for $6.99, or as part of the Season 3 Pass for $24.99 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, & Windows platforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s creator reveals he plotted A.B.A\u2019s return for years Arc System WorksI got the chance to speak with the developers of Guilty Gear Strive about why they chose to bring back A.B.A after more than a decade and what they thought about players\u2019 reactions to her big reveal. A.B.A is Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}