A New Guilty Gear and BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma are two of the games Arc Sytem Works are working on at the moment. In addition to the two anticipated fighters, they’re also working on a visual novel game called XBlaze, where you play as a young boy who was saved by a mysterious sword-wielding girl. Here’s a look at new characters and a new social-info network feature used for events.

Soichiro Unomaru

Age: 35

The director of Mitsurugi Engine Shin-Yokohama’s seventh laboratory branch. Soichiro is currently managing the union’s protection and integrity. He is also the one who is giving direct instructions to Mei and Es. He seems to try hard to give off a cool and calm impression, but actually has a berserk side of him that he doesn’t like to show. He admires anything cute and seems to have a say in Es’ choice of clothing.

Akira Kamewari

Age: 16

Akira is Touya’s close friend who goes to the same school but is part of a different class. His parents live abroad and he’s been living on his own since middle-school. He is rich and good looking, but he is easily flattered and is known for being “unfortunately handsome”.

Ringo Akagi

Age: Unknown

Ringo is Touya’s senior at his part-time job. She always passes mysterious comments about some sort of curry mannerisms towards Touya. She isn’t much of a serious worker, which annoys Touya.

Els Von Klagen

Age: 16

Els is a messenger from the Sorcerer’s Association who randomly applied to inspect on the area. She is a serious character, but she has a deep infatuation for Kuon, and can easily come up with lies as an excuse to be around her. However, it’s also because she’s genuinely worried about Kuon. She understands Kuon’s better than anyone else.

The TOi (Technology Of interest) system is an application widely used by the people living in the world of XBlaze. It is a convenient tool that uses the Internet to gather all sorts of information from any article chosen by the user. In XBlaze, you’ll often be given a choice to look or not to look at articles, which will have an impact in the story of your game.

Here’s a look at some icons to indicate TOi events and other happenings that may occur:

The TOi icon will appear whenever the TOi can be used (it will disappear if left alone). Whenever new information arrives, this icon will appear.

The TOi Lock icon appears when the application isn’t available to be used. The TOi appears during moments where the main character isn’t present, or during cut-scenes.

This is a different TOi icon that indicates a flag event. You won’t be able to use the TOi while these events are active.

As you advance through the story, you’ll automatically collect various new information that may be of Touya’s interest through the TOi system. There are no limits as to how much information you can read using this feature; however, you’ll have to keep in mind that these events will change the fate of your story.

In the end, it will be up to whether you want to take on as many of these events or be selective and try restricting yourself to certain types of articles given by the TOi. These events will also have an impact on the ending of the game.

There will be all sorts of TOi events going on in XBlaze, including some that may show familiar characters as seen in the silhouette above.

Arc System Works’ XBlaze is slated to be released on July 25 for PlayStation 3 and Vita.