ArcSys Finally Reveals Details Around Guilty Gear Strive’s Upcoming Ranked Mode

By Elijah Gonzalez | July 25, 2025 | 1:45pm

Video Games News guilty gear strive

ArcSys Finally Reveals Details Around Guilty Gear Strive’s Upcoming Ranked Mode

While fans of Guilty Gear Strive have been suffering through its non-ideal matchmaking system for the past four years, it appears the game is finally on the verge of getting a true ranked mode. Today Arc System Works revealed the full details on how it will work in their latest Developer’s Backyard blog post, and the good news is that it seems like it will include virtually everything players want when it comes out at some point this August.

The ranked mode will allow players to find matches without going through a lobby, will include seven placement tiers, and will have ranks assigned on a per character basis. As for the first element, the only way to currently find matches in Guilty Gear Strive is through a lobby system where you enter either the Rank Tower or the Park with a playable avatar and sit at a digital arcade cabinet to fight an opponent. While you also find matches while in training mode, all of this works through searching for players in the same lobby as you, making for a tedious and inconsistent system.

For the placement tiers, there will be the following ranks: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Vanquisher. Each will have three tiers (i.e., Platinum 3), except for the final rank, Vanquisher. This will replace the current system where players can enter something called the “Rank Tower” and go up or down on 11 floors based on a somewhat esoteric win-streak system that many find frustrating.

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Lastly, the new ranks added to the game will be on a per character basis, meaning players will have a different rank for each character they play. The vast majority of players prefer this type of ranked system because jumping it punishes playing characters besides your “main.” There is a very steep learning curve for picking up new characters in a fighting game, and when a ranked system works on a per player basis instead of per character, this punishes those who are trying to go out of their comfort zone to play a new fighter, as this will likely tank their overall rank.

With these changes going into place, the existing Rank Tower will be renamed the Duel Tower, and it will now be intended as an entry point for new players to get used to online battles before heading into ranked. Additionally, the Celestial Floor challenge, where you had to win 5 out of 6 matches against Celestial Floor players to win your way back onto the floor each month, will be removed in place of an 11th floor that functions like the others.

Beyond this, several system changes are on the way as well, including plans to reduce the utility and dependency of Wild Assault, make Guard Crushes easier to deal with, and revise the R.I.S.C. level system so that players won’t take as high damage from small amounts of R.I.S.C. accumulation. They’re also planning on updating the Switch version of the game so that it reaches parity with the other versions. All of these changes have been widely requested and will seemingly drop alongside the game’s newest character, Lucy from Cyberpunk Edgerunners, at an unspecified point in August (probably late in the month if the studio’s previous character releases are any indication).