Interview Date: 7/2/2025
Interview Format: One-on-one
Anime Herald: How has the last year treated you and Arc System Works?
Ken Miyauchi: Pretty good.
Anime Herald: Care to elaborate?
Ken Miyauchi: Last year it was me with Seiji Mizushima and Norimitsu Kaiho for Guilty Gear -STRIVE-: Dual Rulers. This year it’s just me.
Anime Herald: Yep. What would you like to focus on this year?
Ken Miyauchi: Obviously the show Guilty Gear -STRIVE-: Dual Rulers has ended. We just released Guilty Gear -STRIVE- Season 4. We’re focused on more updates for Guilty Gear -STRIVE-.
Anime Herald: On that note, I have been asked to pass a message along: please buff Testament. I heard that from multiple people. Who is in charge of that?
Ken Miyauchi: Regarding character buffs and nerfs, that’s up to our battle designers. We see a lot of feedback from the player base. What we do about character balancing is, since there are a lot of players across the world, and they speak a lot of different languages, if we rely on any one source of media, it’s hard to collect all the feedback. Since we are based in Japan and our product designers speak Japanese, they have difficulty understanding English. As a producer, to avoid skewing towards one culture or one country, I try to collect all the feedback from Europe, the US, Japan, Korea, and communicate with the battle design team, “What do you think about this?”, “What is your philosophy about doing this?”
I am constantly having this conversation with the team.
Anime Herald: If the fans wanted to communicate an idea or some thoughts, what is the best way of doing that?
Ken Miyauchi: Any format is totally fine. We try to look into all types of media. Reddit, Discord, Twitter, rarely Facebook. We’ll look at YouTube. We also look into other fighting game channels to collect information. There is no specific channel they need to use. I would say any channel is totally fine.
I would like to say that the Guilty Gear -STRIVE- community is very honest, straightforward, and vocal about what they are thinking and feeling. Both positively, and negatively. We really appreciate that. Sharing their thoughts allows us to know what they are feeling. Straightforward feedback helps our team. I really appreciate how the players communicate with us.
Anime Herald: I will pass that along to the people of Reddit so they know they should keep sharing their negative angry thoughts. Arc System Works is listening.
What would you like to talk about?
Ken Miyauchi: We’ve been working on DC and our future updates.
Anime Herald: What do you have coming down the pipeline?
Ken Miyauchi: I think a lot of people may have questioned whether Guilty Gear -STRIVE- will end its updates after Lucy [from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners]. We haven’t announced anything. I would like to share that we have a big plan that will surprise people. They will enjoy what we have coming. Our development hasn’t stopped. People should look forward to it.
Anime Herald: Do you have a rough timeline for when people can expect this?
Ken Miyauchi: Sometime in 2026.
Anime Herald: How long do updates take in production?
Ken Miyauchi: I can’t say exactly when it started. We’ve been having projected things to do that started in Season 2 that we haven’t been able to accomplish yet. There are things that are incomplete that we are working on. I am pretty sure people will like it.
Anime Herald: Taichiro Miyazaki of Cyberconnect2 said something very interesting to me. He said that video game development is a series of inventions. You have an idea of how long things might take, but you don’t know. It sounds like that’s where you are.
Ken Miyauchi: It’s something like that.
Anime Herald: Guilty Gear -STRIVE- is available on different platforms. Do you find that player preferences vary wildly by platforms?
Ken Miyauchi: That’s an interesting question. I am going to say that there is some variance depending on the platform. Our major player base plays on Steam. A lot of players who play on the Switch aren’t all that competitive. Our tournament standard platform is Playstation 5. A lot of our competitive players practice on Playstation 5. When they want to casually play, they’ll often pick Steam. Depending on the platform, more casual people will skew the character picks to more standard all-around characters, like Sol and Ky. Sol and Ky are generally popular, I’m just using them as examples.
More competitive platforms are more varied with different characters. It won’t be skewed towards one or two characters.
Anime Herald: Which character is your main?
Ken Miyauchi: Depending on the Season and the timing, it can vary. Currently, I am playing Unika. She just came out and I find her fun to play.
Anime Herald: I always route for I-No.
Over the past year a lot of video game companies have dealt with some tough times, with many of them downsizing. Has Arc System Works faced those pressures?
Ken Miyauchi: Not really. As you may know, we purchased AQURIA to expand our development studio. AQURIA are known for working on action games and RPGs. We are known for fighting games. Now we are trying to gain their expertise on action games and RPGs. We are currently doing a lot of internal trials to gain more expertise on these different fields.
(Editor’s note: The press release refers to it as a capital alliance.)
I think Arc System Works is in a healthy situation compared to what you described earlier. We are doing a lot of small trials and taking a bit of time to prepare for larger projects in the future. I hope Arc System Works fans can expect to see bigger titles in the future.
Anime Herald: For these action games, are you more focused on 2D or 3D?
Ken Miyauchi: We aren’t focusing on either 2D or 3D. We are known for our anime style. That’s the direction we’d like to keep going. It really depends on who is the project manager; who is the lead.
Anime Herald: Were you involved in the discussions about acquiring the other studio, or does that go on above you?
Ken Miyauchi: That’s above me. I’m not in those discussions. It surprised me when I found out we acquired AQURIA.
Anime Herald: What are your responsibilities here at Anime Expo?
Ken Miyauchi: I don’t have any responsibilities at Anime Expo, itself. I flew over from HQ in Japan. I’m here for the AX panel, and some business meetings, and doing interviews like this.
Anime Herald: Are there any non-work-related things you are looking forward to here at Anime Expo or in Los Angeles?
Ken Miyauchi: I used to work at Arc Systems America in Torrance. I visited the people who I used to work with and grabbed dinner with them.
Anime Herald: It’s strange. Last year we had a full table. This year it’s much quieter.
Ken Miyauchi: The reason for that is because right now there is Japan Expo in France. Most of our team went to Japan Expo. We’ve recently established Arc Systems Europe in Paris. Since it is still new, we are trying to support it.
Anime Herald: Have you visited the new studio?
Ken Miyauchi: Yes.
Anime Herald: You get to go to some nice places.
Ken Miyauchi: Really?
Anime Herald: I think so. What are you most excited for during the rest of your time here at Anime Expo?
Ken Miyauchi: Artist’s Alley! I’ll try to go tomorrow. It was too crowded yesterday (July 4th)
Anime Herald: Back to Arc System Works. Are there any projects in the pipeline that you are allowed to talk about?
Ken Miyauchi: Not really. I wish I could.
Anime Herald: Then speaking more generally, are there any projects that surprised you? Something that you didn’t expect to work on at Arc System Works?
Ken Miyauchi: Nothing negatively surprising.
Anime Herald: What is your work day like on a daily basis?
Ken Miyauchi: The producer role at Arc System Works doesn’t have a clear job description. I have freedom in terms of what I do. Mainly, I am in charge of making decisions in terms of what will be in the Guilty Gear -STRIVE- updates. I make sure to communicate with every section, and our directors. Talk with them about what they want to do with the game. Talk with the battle design team about what players are expecting to see in future updates. I am the one taking responsibility for what we are doing.
Anime Herald: Is this usually over email, or in person?
Ken Miyauchi: Arc System Works is just one building. We don’t have multiple buildings. We’ll walk up the stairs. The Guilty Gear team is on one entire floor. I’ll go to the person I want to talk to and say “Hey, hello.”
Anime Herald: How does it work if you get a lot of feedback saying these characters need to be buffed, and these characters need to be nerfed?
Ken Miyauchi: We don’t have a particular format. We tend to not like doing things in a meeting format. That takes up a lot of time. If it’s something we need to talk about big-picture, a major vision, then we’ll have a meeting. Community reaction and feedback changes over time. I’ll just go up to them and ask them and ask “What do you think?”
Anime Herald: Can you talk about any specific instances in the past?
Ken Miyauchi: I would stay away from talking about that. I don’t want to get caught by our battle designers.
Anime Herald: How are the internal politics of that?
Ken Miyauchi: It’s flat. I just don’t want to put them into the focus of the discussion. Some of them used to be players who are now battle designers. I want to make sure they keep their work perspective healthy. I try not to talk too much about how we work together.
Anime Herald: How would you describe the work culture at Arc System Works?
Ken Miyauchi: We’re creatively driven. It won’t always be the standard way of doing things. If it’s a good creative idea, they’ll say “Just go on.”
Anime Herald: Thank you very much.
Ken Miyauchi: Thank you. I appreciate you coming by.
Anime Expo 2025: Arc System Works Talks With Anime Herald – Seth Burn