Predicting Guilty Gear Strive’s DLC Characters

Yes I know there have been leaks and rumors, but I’ve chosen to ignore those. It’s more fun that way.

By the time this article will have come out, the first DLC character for Guilty Gear Strive will have been announced. Unfortunately, this article was written before that, so I still have no idea who it is. We know that it’s someone new to the franchise, but that’s it.

So that leaves four characters left this season. Who can they be? Characters from the story mode? Characters from previous games? All-new characters who have never been seen in either one before?

I’m going to go with the second option because that just makes writing this much easier on me.

Baiken

I may be a bit partial on this one. I was a Baiken man back in XX and Xrd. And unlike most Baiken mains: I actually played her!

She’s just such a fun character. A one-armed samurai that fights with cannons and tatami mats and shit?! That’s the coolest shit ever! And she was an absolute blast to play as in all of the previous games!

Plus, she’s got actual story reasons to be here this time. The main villain of the story mode is the dude she’s been trying to get revenge on for the entire series! Granted, he isn’t playable (unless he was the first DLC character announced, in which case all the more reason).

Not to mention that she is crazy popular. Back in the betas, ArcSys did a pole on who the fans wanted to be added to the game. Baiken was #1 in all but one of the four regions polled. If this were an election, she would have won it by a landslide.

She’s the only one on this list that I’m confident in.

Dizzy

I was initially going to go with Elphelt, but then my will to live stepped in and set me straight. The idea of having to fight her again is enough to give me nightmares.

Dizzy is one of the most interesting characters in the series for me. Her move set is crazy versatile, challenging to learn, and even more difficult to deal with. A good Dizzy player is a rare thing, but they are among the most dangerous people you could run into in Guilty Gear.

That, and she’s always had the most fun supers. Her Instant Kill in Xrd was literally just her dropping a nuke in the distance and scaring her opponent into surrendering. I know that IKs aren’t here anymore (please please please add them later on), but she still could have some fun ones in Strive!

Also, her inclusion would bring back the ever complex family dynamic Sol and Ky are trapped in. Which is a must, at this point.

Slayer

Am I a Slayer player? No. Am I putting this on here because I want a classy vampire to fight a samurai vampire? Absolutely yes.

Everything about Slayer is just dripping fun and style. He opened every round of Xrd by sucking his immortal girlfriend dry and tossing her dried out corpse aside. His IK was just him punching his opponent to the sky while writing a haiku. The dude is just so damn cool!

His move set was always simple stylistically, but it made up for it by its high difficulty ceiling; Slayer combos were fucking hard back in the day! Just imagine what kind of crazy shit people could pull off with him with the systems in Strive!

And again: you can get some awesome vampire on vampire action! What can I say, I’m a simple man with simple desires.

Johnny

May may be a pirate, but she ain’t a suave pirate. Who fights with coins. Like a badass.

Johnny was always a fun character to play. Juggling his ammo supply of coins with combos and positioning and meter control and all that other good fighting game shit was a challenge, but it was a ton of fun! And when you pulled it off, it made you feel like an unstoppable badass!

Plus, he has the lore connection with May. It’s not much, but it would give May someone to actually interact with in the intros. Because as it stands, all she really has to say to anyone is ‘get ready to be hit by my dolphin armada’ because she hardly knows any of these people.

Also they could design him to move around some of her crazy bullshit. Provided they don’t just nerf her to hell in the next patch. Which they probably will.

Conclusion

Are any of these going to be right? Probably not. The only one I’m confident in is Baiken, considering her massive boobs popularity. All the others could show up, they could be in a later season pass, they might not even show up at all! ArcSys certainly has a long list to choose from.

Please, for the love of god, don’t be Elphelt. I don’t ever want to fight that one again.