Arc System Works is striving to build an audience among Nintendo fans.
As shared on Twitter by Gematsu, a special banner has been spotted at the venue for this year’s PAX West, which would be the Seattle Convention Center. The banner is laid on the entrance of the atrium lobby, with the Guilty Gear Strive logo deep at the center. And the left side of the banner says:
“Nintendo Switch Edition – Pre-Order Now!”
The banner also has a QR code, that we decided to scan for ourselves. The link is live, but it doesn’t show any links to pre-order Guilty Gear Strivefor the Nintendo Switch for now. The first link that appears is this bitly:
https://bit.ly/ASWA-links?r=qr
But it ultimately links to the Arc Systems Works card landing page, which you can see here:
https://arcsystemworks.carrd.co
There is a link to order Guilty Gear Strive online, but it only has links to the platforms it is already on for now.
Guilty Gear Strive was originally released on 2021 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Windows via Steam. A month after this initial launch, it debuted in arcades, and it came to Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S in 2023.
Guilty Gear Strive is the seventh main game on the timeline, and the 25th game in the franchise in total. It sums up a narrative arc that started with Guilty Gear Xrd in 2014. But in a broader sense, it is also the culmination of the story that started from the first Guilty Gear, released on the PlayStation all the way back in 1998.
Most gamers, even hardcore Guilty Gear fans, don’t know this, but Arc System Works’ history with Nintendo goes deep. Their very first title, when they were still called Arc Co. Ltd. was Final Lap on the Famicom, all the way back in 1988.
Of course, the Arc System Works that we know and love really introduced itself to the world a decade later with its signature fighting game franchise. While they would occasionally make new original games for Nintendo’s platforms, they would not bring the same versions of their fighting games that they brought to other consoles for years.
And then they made DragonBall FighterZ, and brought it to the Nintendo Switch in 2018. This was a blockbuster success for Arc System Works, Nintendo, and publisher Bandai Namco, and seemed to unlock a new opportunity for Arc System Works.
So in the last six months after that, they had been bringing over many of their games to the Switch. They even brought over the original 1998 Guilty Gear that was originally exclusive to the PlayStation. If anything, it’s surprising that Arc System Works would bring Guilty Gear Strive over to the Switch when its successor is on the way. But perhaps that has been accounted for in this release, and the game will perform better on that platform. We are looking forward to see this confirmed this weekend, and if there’s anything else (like additional platforms) that they want to tell us there.
