GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- Game Design Teaser

Welcome, players, to UniVersus: GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- edition! By now, you’re probably familiar with our tradition of partnering with classic and new IPs to bring fresh ideas to the mix - and GGST is no exception. As the lead designer for the GGST set, I’m excited to walk you all through what we cooked up this time around.

To begin, let’s go over some of GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE-’s core features—the most obvious being its smaller set size compared to recent releases. Just as we experimented and learned from our larger Attack on Titan: Battle For Humanity release, here we saw an opportunity to test a leaner offering while still package that introduces new advantages to our players. GGST will be faster and easier to complete for collectors, while newcomers will find it more approachable than ever. Fear not, each Blitz Box Booster Pack will still contain the same number of cards along with the usual assortment of awe-inspiring alts and chromes. We are also continuing to deploy symbols selectively, only including ones that best match the tighter roster, card designs, and the overall IP identity. As such, you will find the Air, All, Chaos, Earth, Fire, Order, Void, and Water symbols representing GGST. Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s move on to the most unique element of GGST - the debut of the Tension keyword and our first ever token card.

One of the defining features that sets GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- apart from other fighting games is, of course, its Tension mechanic. Players build up their Tension gauge by, well, being aggressive: advancing, attacking, and keeping up the pressure. The filled meter unlocks powerful abilities called “Roman Cancel”, which range from explosive all-in combos to safe retreats and resets. It’s not just about timing your actions, but knowing how to best spend this flexible resource that sets this game apart from its competition. As a casual fan of the franchise, I knew I wanted to bring this deep and satisfying mechanic into UniVersus in every way I could.

Our exploration began by examining momentum-related mechanics, as Tension is generated through aggressive plays, just like momentum is for our game. Due to the complex nature of the various Roman Cancel effects, I pitched using a token card to manage text length and clarity. Thus the first ever UVS token with mechanical abilities was born. The game design team playtested the initial version for a few weeks before locking in its overall shape, and the final design was surprisingly close to where we started, thanks to key elements that both constrained our creativity and led us to the solution.

Rules-wise, Tension is a Blitz-timing mechanic: When you play an attack, you may play this ability as a Blitz effect. When you do, add one Roman Cancel token to your momentum. (Don’t worry, we are utilizing double-sided printing technology to put these on the backside of our character cards). The rules for token cards will allow you to use the tokens abilities in the zone it was created in. While the Roman Cancel token is in your momentum, it grants access to four different abilities, and you may activate any of them once per turn following the usual timing rules and additional costs. For GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- fans, you’ll notice that each ability on the Roman Cancel token reflects their original version in the fighting game. Blue provides an advantage in neutral, Purple helps you recover from overcommitting, and so on. We initially costed every ability the same, requiring only the token itself as payment, but that proved difficult to balance in terms of desired output. More importantly, we actually found the gameplay more engaging when players had to weigh different costs for different levels of impact. Another obvious departure from the game that you may have caught is that these tokens are spent after one full turn. While the fleeting nature of the token is new to our game, we again found this change to improve player experience by incentivizing proactive tactics rather than stockpiling resources. 

During development, we made several small but meaningful adjustments. Blue’s timing window shifted to Form speed, Yellow’s impact was reduced, and Red went through several redesigns, moving away from “win-more” versions that required additional momentum. I believe Purple actually had the least change - we liked it so much from the start. Ultimately, we added an additional safety valve by limiting each ability activation to once per turn. We believe that the first activation already feels rewarding, but additional uses, in particular the defensive ones, can quickly become frustrating to play against. It was also important to the team to test how well these tokens act as momentum fuel for other cards - yet another reason we don’t want the tokens to stick around and build up over time. Instead, you have to figure out how to best use them the turn you get them! 

And indeed you will have no shortage of ways to access Roman Cancels - once we locked in on the mechanic, I decided to go all in on supporting it - after all, almost every attack in the video game builds the Tension meter, so what better way to capture that than by giving Tension to most of the attack cards in the set? I had to juggle the rarities a bit to ensure that boosters for Sealed and Draft formats still have access to the same distribution of attacks and non-attacks, but the end result is that most of the attacks in the set, excluding a handful of Secret and Ultra Rares, carry the Tension keyword. Time to go wild!

That’s all I have for today, but before you leave, I’d like to give a shoutout to Leenoco Guile and Josh Alexander for contributing to the fun and faithful adaptation of the IP. Even with a smaller set size, I hope you find plenty of joy in discovering the character designs, top-down game references, and hidden easter eggs. I can’t wait to see the creative ways players bring them to life!