Earlier this week, 4Gamer released an interview with BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle producer Toshimichi Mori, who talked about what his wishlist of collaborations for the game were, but in the same interview, he also discussed just how Cross Tag Battle came to feature characters from the Senran Kagura series, Akatsuki Blitzkampf, and Arcana Heart.

On Arcana Heart:

Toshimichi Mori, producer: “Actually [by May] Heart Aino’s inclusion was basically already decided upon. We’ve worked together with Examu for a long time, and so we were looking for the right timing for her to join.”

Tatsunori Ishikawa, director: “She was decided upon pretty early on. Of course, we had lots of potential picks, but Arcana Heart fit better with BlazBlue than the other ones.”

On Akatsuki Blitzkampf:

Mori: “This was heavily requested from the staff. Since they were so insistent, we went to negotiate with the original creator, and got the permission to add [Akatsuki and Blitztank]. Akatsuki had already joined Under Night In-Birth, but we listened to the original creator’s request to have him join under the Akatsuki Blitzkampf title, so it was included as a new title.”

“Still, a lot of people were shocked when they saw Blitztank.” (laughs)

“The staff said, “You’ve gotta add Blitztank when it comes to Akatsuki Blitzkampf!””

On Senran Kagura:

Mori: “If we’re talking about non-fighting game titles, RWBY has been in from the start, but we also wanted to include something else as well. I’m friends with [Kenichiro] Takaki-san who worked with the Senran Kagura series, and when I brought it up, he gave permission, and things went smoothly from thereon out.

I was struggling between whether to add Asuka or Yumi, but after discussing with Marvelous, we went with Yumi.”

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Check out the latest patch notes here and trailers here.