In the latest instance of censorship to hit Guilty Gear Strive, a recent update to the ArcSys fighting game has made it so that the models in its ‘Digital Figure’ mode now completely disappear if the player attempts to view them at a ‘risqué’ angle.
Added to the game in early 2022 along with the release of Testament as a playable fighter, Guilty Gear Strive‘s diorama-style Digital Figure mode allows for players to take various character models, as unlocked via an in-game gacha-style minigame, and pose them against various backdrops, which they can then screenshot, save, and share with other players.
Upon its initial addition, players were allowed complete freedom to photograph their digital figures as they saw fit, particularly in regards to highlighting a given character’s forward facing and rear ‘assets’. Photos shared via the game’s network features that were deemed too ‘not safe for work’ by ArcSys’ own filters would be restricted from viewing by other users, but they could still be taken locally.
However, that has changed with -Strive-‘s recent Version 1.41 update.
Released on November 18th, the update not only brings with it gameplay adjustments and a new ‘Team of 3’ mode, but also a pair of puritanical adjustments to to the Digital Figure modem with ArcSys having “adjusted the display region of the camera so that when viewing certain areas of the figures via the camera, the display will be toggled off.”
To further support this change, the developer has also added a new icon that “will now be displayed to indicate when the figure display is toggled off due to the limitations on figure display areas.”
In other words, if a player tries to get a ‘lewd’-angled look at any given character – male or female, as confirmed by Automaton Media‘s Carlo Zotomayor – said character’s model will now completely disappear from the diorama until the camera is moved to a move ‘appropriate’ position.
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At current, ArcSys has yet to publicly explain why they chose to censor Strive‘s Digital Figure mode nearly three years after its debut.
However, it should be noted that in a November 15th post to the game’s official website, the developer announced, per a machine translation provided by DeepL, that Strive would soon be seeing “the CERO rating mark for the PlayStation 4/PlayStation 5 version of Guilty Gear -Strive-” updated from “CERO B to CERO C in accordance with the game content”.
It also appears that all versions of the game will now be rated CERO C, as its upcoming Nintendo Switch release currently holds this designation.
Otherwise known as Japan’s notoriously strict answer to America’s ESRB or Europe’s PEGI system, the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization, or CERO, is responsible for determining and providing age ratings to any and all media released within the Land of the Rising Sun.
Games that have a CERO B rating are meant to be “for 12-year-olds and above”, while CERO C games are intended “for 15-year-olds and above”. To this end, current speculation based on the circumstantial evidence suggests that ArcSys censored Strive’s Digital Figure mode in a failed attempt to keep the game at a lower age rating in the hopes of providing it with a wider potential customer base.
Notably, ‘maximizing the Strive‘s audience’ has been an open goal of ArcSys’ ever since the game’s launch.
In June 2021, director and franchise creator Daisuke Ishiwatari told Famitsu that they censored the appearance of I-No and made the game’s actual mechanics less demanding in order “to make the game more accessible to more people.”
“Development costs are increasing, but the number of users is decreasing,” he affirmed. “We want to make the GG [Guilty Gear] brand known to as many people as possible so that they will play our games.”
Other attempts to widen the game’s appeal have included the removal of references to nations and regions who are currently on the bad side of the Chinese government, as well as the gender-swapping of previously established male characters to non-binary or transgender.
Ishiwatari himself has also previously opined that if ArcSys hopes to expand Strive‘s community to “global tournaments”, its content “should not be in violation of global standards of compliance.”
Arc System Works are also focusing on “global tournaments,” and making sure their games “should not be in violation of global standards of compliance.”
At current, the Nintendo Switch release of Guilty Gear Strive is on track to rock the hybrid-handheld console beginning on January 23rd, 2025.