Elphelt Valentine’s return to Guilty Gear in Strive was already leaked earlier this week but that happened through some blurry images and context clues. Now, the character, her release date, and details about a brand new way to play the game have all been shared by an official source—Bandai Namco.
Bandai has partnered with Arc System Works on multiple previous games, including Strive, as it helped publish the game in Europe and Australia. As a result, many official Bandai sources share news and updates about the game when they are first revealed. Unfortunately, this led to a slight mixup ahead of what should have been a reveal during The Game Awards 2023 where Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada dropped the info early on Twitter.
As soon as Harada dropped his very straightforward announcement (read, accidental leak) tweet linking out to an official blog post about the new Strive reveals, fighting game fans showed how flabbergasted they were at the early info with interpretive memeing. The top responses were either repurposing previous Harada classics like the “Don’t Ask Me For Shit” quote or Walter White screaming from his car begging him to stop.
The blog has since been taken down, and the trailer for Elphelt was never made public since it is hosted on ArcSys’ YouTube channel, however, we do still have a full list of details regarding the new character and a new mode coming to the game.
Elphelt is going to feature the ability to “overwhelm the opponent with an arsenal of mix-up tools” when the revamped idol releases later today on all platforms as part of Season Pass Three alongside a new set of balance adjustments that features special moves for Axl Low and Potemkin. In addition to the update going live today, ArcSys has announced a new six-player mode called TEAM OF 3 that will release in 2024. It will feature two teams of three battling against each other at once, with more details set to be shared at a later date.
While it is unfortunate ArcSys saw its new content leak twice in the same week, at least the second reason will be a fun joke in the FGC moving forward compared to some shady backend work like what happened to Rockstar with the GTA6 trailer.
