The salt weekend starts tonight
Updating: The open beta for Guilty Gear Strive is now available to all players on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. The download requires approximately 11 GB of space on the PS4.
Mankind knew they couldn’t wait any longer to try out Guilty Gear Strive’s rollback grid code, so instead of hiding it from the world, Arc System Works is about to open the floodgates to just about anyone who wants to play .
The public open beta for Guilty Gear Strive is scheduled to go live in a few hours, so we’ve gathered everything you need to know to get started before starting online matches from when servers will be available for character guides and how the gameplay will flow.
First, it’s probably important to find out when / where the beta will be available, so this trial version is only available to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 owners.
The beta client can be downloaded from the PlayStation Store starting tonight, February 18 at 7 p.m. PT / 10 p.m. ET, and the servers are scheduled to go live at the same time.
like you can’t find beta in PS Store on consoles, you can add them to your library from the website version of the market and then download them from that library on your system of choice.
There would be no downtime for maintenance, but the servers unexpectedly went offline earlier Thursday for those who took early action and stayed that way for about five hours.
This open beta testing period will last to Sunday, Feb. 21 at 6:59 a.m.PT where the application will probably no longer be playable without the server connection.
There are 13 playable characters to choose from, the vast majority of fighters of which will be available at launch – only Anji Mito and the unannounced 15th contestant are disregarded.
ArcSys has released character-specific starter guide videos for each of them that you can watch by clicking the following links: Giovanna, Nagoriyuki, Leo, Ramlethal, Zato-1, Millia, Ky Kiske, Potemkin, May, Sol, Axl, Chipp, and Faust .
They also made the system overview video below to showcase the different mechanisms available in Strive, such as the modified / improved Roman Cancel capability.
Players newer / not very familiar with the Guilty Gear series may also want to check out some additional beginner guides, and luckily content creators like Rooflemonger and LordKnight got you covered there as the in-game beta tutorial doesn’t really teach much from something.
Even veterans will have to learn a lot as Strive is a very different beast on the field where combat is much more grounded than the usual high flying combos and removing most of the Gatling options. The damage output is also very high, so blocking, cracking and using Roman Cancels correctly is more important than ever.
Unlike last year’s first beta, there are multiple modes to spend your time outside of online matches, including a robust training mode and offline versus mode if you just want to compete against the computer or a friend on the couch.
Also different from what we had to play before is that Strive now runs on rollback netcode instead of delay-based, which fans have been asking for since the initial reveal.
The pros and others who have had the chance to play have already stated that this may be the smoothest online game they have ever experienced in a fighting game.
While those rave reviews are promising, we have to keep in mind that these players generally invest in the best internet available to them and play on wired connections, so the general public may see a bit of a different outcome.
While there are no connection filters in the beta, Strive does actually display the ping and rollback frames going on in matches with reports of games at 200ms + still playable. The higher the number, the worse the match is likely to perform.
Many also test cross-continental competitions by joining other countries’ lobbies, so don’t be afraid to jump into the Japanese tower to see how it holds up for yourself.
A PlayStation Plus subscription is not required to play online, so anyone with Sony’s consoles and an internet connection can play Strive.
The nearly universally panned lobby system is back, as is the unique classification system, although standard matching search is also available. Some have reported that that feature was not working properly when the beta started, but hopefully this will be resolved for the main event.
Those looking for the full action will have to wait around two months as Guilty Gear Strive will be released on PS4, PS5 and PC on April 9th.