Guilty Gear -Strive-, Arc System Work's latest entry into its flagship fighting game franchise is finally coming to Nintendo Switch. Players on Nintendo's console can finally fight each other in this storied animé fighter, but not the existing player base on other systems due to its lack of crossplay.
While the game initially didn't launch with cross-platform play, Guilty Gear -Strive- finally got crossplay in late 2022. This allowed players on PC and console to finally play against each other. This move also meant that the matchmaking pool for all players was increased, ensuring that players sticking to the game continued to have a wider pool of opponents, even as the game experienced the expected drop off in players as it aged.
Despite this benefit, Guilty Gear -Strive-'s Switch port will not include crossplay, meaning players on Nintendo's portable are stuck playing against themselves, limiting the matchmaking pool. (Read: Guilty Gear -Strive- animé adaptation announced)
Arc System Works has not given a reason for the feature's exclusion from the Switch port. However, there are some guesses as to why. For one, the Switch's lower processing power could possibly cause lag issues when playing against those on more powerful systems — Guilty Gear -Strive- uses peer-to-peer rollback netcode after all. In addition, the higher prevalence of Wi-Fi users since the Switch requires a separate adapter for wired connections could also be a factor.
Fighting games are particularly sensitive to jitter and instability, something that's unavoidable with Wi-Fi. Many fighting games already provide an indication of whether an opponent is on Wi-Fi, while others even provide the option of filtering out opponents on Wi-Fi.
Regardless of Guilty Gear -Strive- on Switch's lack of crossplay, it still represents one more fighting game finally making it to Nintendo's portable. Most of the current crop of big fighting games tend to skip the system after all — both Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 are not on it — so it's nice to see Switch players being given another fighting game option.
Here's hoping Guilty Gear -Strive- on Switch not having crossplay doesn't stop it from finding an audience on the system when it arrives on January 23, 2025.
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