ArcSys at New Game+ Expo: Considering More Rollback Titles and a Second Beta

Arc System Works’ Akira Katano answered some questions in a Q/A session in the latter portion of Thursday’s New Game Plus Expo on Twitch. The Expo was a showcase of games from ArcSys and other Japanese video game developers including Koei Tecmo, Idea Factory, and Aksys. While NG+ Expo is largely a general video games event, ArcSys’ time was spent exclusively talking about their upcoming fighting game Guilty Gear -STRIVE-.

While the Q/A session remained short, Katano gave a few exciting hints of what we can expect to come from ArcSys in the future. The session started with a question about the development of -STRIVE-‘s rollback netcode framework and how it will affect ArcSys’ other titles since they have now developed a seemingly well functional framework on their own. Katano said that they are generally exploring the possibility of adding rollback netcode to other games and “looking at the requests” of the community to prioritize which titles to implement rollback netcode in. While the question may have been focused more on future titles, this is an interesting answer from Katano; BlazBlue: Centralfiction fans had been calling for an improvement to their game’s netcode shortly after the GGPO GGAC+R beta test began, could this mean ArcSys has their eye on bringing rollback netcode to the BlazBlue series? Additionally, Katano noted that ArcSys had not decided whether they should focus on applying the -STRIVE- framework or “other middleware solutions” such as GGPO to titles they have been considering, suggesting that their options for methodology and titles to update are fairly open.

In addition to discussing rollback netcode, Katano also answered a question about the lobby optimization, and whether elements of it would be tuned before release. While answering the question, Katano mentioned that the game was delayed to rectify issues related to servers which everyone experienced in the open beta test, he also mentioned that internally ArcSys has been considering performing a second open beta test, presumably to verify their solutions to these server issues. Within this hypothetical second open beta, Katano described, would also possibly be improvements to the general pace, flow, and functionality of the lobby system. Problems Katano specifically noted were issues like the “tempo of matches. . . [due to] certain bugs” and difficulties in starting matches due to it being hard to tell when a match was starting. No details were mentioned about whether Anji and I-No would be added in this possible beta, and that will likely remain to be seen since it appears the characters are still under construction.

While those two answers are two hot-button issues in the Guilty Gear Community right now, critically, Katano also mentioned that the game’s balance was only implemented to represent a framework in the beta and that changes will be coming. Particularly, Katano noted that players who spent all their time in practice mode in the beta will likely be surprised to see what they practiced changed upon full release.

With several topics important to fans discussed in the Q/A session, ArcSys rounded out their presentation showing some new gameplay footage of the two newest characters to the game, Anji Mito and I-No. A trailer containing some new gameplay of the two was also released which you can check out below.