While Guilty Gear as a franchise isn't quite as well-known as Street Fighter, the brand has made incredible strides in recent years, particularly outside of Japan. Roaring back into the spotlight in 2014 with the release of Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- and maintaining its presence courtesy of its two meaty follow-ups (Revelator and REV 2), the series has made significant inroads in appealing to casual fighting game fans.

Now a mainstay title at Evo, it's safe to say the series is growing. Still, Ishiwatari isn't satisfied just yet. Not one to mince words, the outspoken creator of the franchise had this to say about the game's popularity in the Western FGC: "The game's popularity [in the West] isn't quite where I'd like it to be yet, but given that we've been working on the same style of game since day one, it's good that the image of Guilty Gear in the West is growing. We've always kept the style of Guilty Gear the same, and I'd like to continue [that style] going forward."

Technological evolution

While the style of the franchise may be unchanged in the nearly two decades since the the first entry in the series launched on the original PlayStation, the technology powering Guilty Gear is an entirely different story. For example, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- was one of the first fighting games out of Japan to use Unreal Engine as a middleware solution. Before that, like many developers of the previous decades, they "rolled their own," building the engine at Arc System Works from the ground up.

"During early development of the game that would become Guilty Gear Xrd, we tested a lot of different middleware options. Unreal Engine was the best match for us given our budget and timeline," explains Ishiwatari. Middleware provides fighting game developers with a suite of tools that can be used to shorten development time, and since Xrd -SIGN- released, several other fighting game developers, including Bandai Namco and Capcom, have taken to utilizing Unreal Engine as a part of their development processes as well, making Ishiwatari a bit of a pioneer in this regard.

Technology aside, building a balanced fighting game can be exceptionally difficult, as well. During development, Ishiwatari would often attend location tests to measure player reaction to various characters and gameplay systems. When asked what surprises him the most during these trips to the fierce battlegrounds of Japanese arcades was how quickly players adapted to the new games. "Despite the fact [the game] is only at a prototype stage, people attending our location tests are so skilled! It's unbelievable," says Ishiwatari.

The future of Xrd

Though he's been extremely busy in recent years handling the respective launches of Sign, Revelator and REV2, Ishiwatari is far from done. Looking to the future, he would like to make the fans happy by adding more classic characters to Xrd's expanding roster. "I'd love to add everyone in," Ishiwatari explains, "but due to challenges with staffing, development and budgetary restrictions, it's somewhat difficult at times."

Asked which character he personally would want to add the roster if he could, his answer was immediate: "Robo-Ky." The reason? "His interesting playstyle." More recent fans of the Guilty Gear franchise might have seen Robo-Ky make an appearance in Revelator's Story Mode. The character was actually playable in earlier franchise entries, and was notorious for his goofy weapon-based attacks and unique way of handling meter management.

Will we see Robo-Ky one day? © Arc System Works

Predictions, hopes and dreams

A fan as well as a player and a developer, followers of Guilty Gear may be surprised to know that Ishiwatari does indeed follow the Guilty Gear competitive scene. He was rooting for veteran Zato-1 player Kenichi Ogawa in this year's tournament. "There are so many great players to choose from nowadays, especially since their numbers have grown so much. If I had to choose one, it would be Ogawa ... not only because of his skill at the game, but because of his personality as well," says Ishiwatari.

While Ogawa regrettably did not end up in Top 8 at this year's Evo (finishing in 17th place after a few hard-fought battles), a few predictions of Ishiwatari's concerning the final matches of the tournament did, in fact, come true. "I'm absolutely sure we're going to see a Raven in the finals," guessed Ishiwatari, "and since Leo has been gaining popularity overseas, and I like him as a character, I'd like to see a Leo in the finals as well." Both of his guesses were spot-on, with Ryota "Kazunoko" Inoue finishing fifth with Raven, and T5M7 ending up battling all the way to second place with Leo.

Ishiwatari also took some time to answer some rapid-fire questions, such as his favorite character ("I like all of them", he said), whether he would be interested in lending his voice to Sol Badguy in a future game (to which he responded with a simple "no"), and when we can expect to know the future of the Guilty Gear franchise ("I'd like to know that too," he teased.).

Finally, the father of Guilty Gear left us with one final message for Arc System Works fans: "I'd like to continue evolving the series, but beyond that, I'm hoping to start something entirely new with the Guilty Gear franchise. Please look forward to it." No matter what direction Ishiwatari decides to take Guilty Gear in the future, it looks like Arc fans have a lot to look forward to.