Guilty Gear Strive somewhat-surprised fans late last week when it announced its first crossover character, Lucy from the excellent anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, a show based on CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 (and, consequently, the OG Cyberpunk TTRPG).
I say "somewhat", because crossover characters (or 'guest' fighters) aren't at all uncommon in fighting games—they're practically tradition. However, Guilty Gear Strive came out in 2021—making it three years without so much as a multiversal cough in its direction, so the sudden debut of Lucy was at least enough to raise my eyebrows and make me say 'huh, neat!'
In an interview with IGN, though, producer Ken Miyauchi has hinted that there may very well be more guest fighters coming: "We've been doing this work since 2023, actually. And we've been talking to CD PROJEKT RED because our lead artist, Hidehiko Sakamura, is actually a big fan of The Witcher series."
Miyauchi then reveals that the conversation drifted from The Witcher to Cyberpunk (reasonable, since I think Lucy jacks into Strive's post-sci fi mythology better). She is however, as the interviewer notes, an interesting pick for a crossover: Sandevistan savant David Martinez is the series' leading man.
"I cannot talk much about why [we chose Lucy], because that might spoil what we are trying to do. But there is a reason we decided Lucy. Of course, I personally wanted to see David with Sandevistan, but yeah, so I can't talk about it right now, but I hope people will figure [it] out in the future."
That seems like a pretty clear-cut moment of 'ah, I've said too much'—not being able to talk about Lucy's selection because it might spoil something does imply that something else is in the works, even if it's not necessarily another Edgerunners character.
However, Miyauchi could simply be hinting at Lucy's in-game justification for blaming the beasts since, and I'm about to spoil Cyberpunk: Edgerunners here, she's one of the few surviving members of the original cast. David is donezo, as are most fan-favourite choices that'd be first in line for a guest appearance.
Either way, the care with which Miyauchi handles the topic is confirmation that something's going on. Strive's continued relevance, either way, adds more fuel to the rip-roaring success that is the fighting game scene this year, according to our own button-mashing aficionado and features producer Mollie Taylor.
