{"id":14839,"date":"2022-08-10T22:04:33","date_gmt":"2022-08-10T13:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=14839"},"modified":"2022-08-10T22:05:39","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T13:05:39","slug":"20220810-14839","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridget boosts Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s player count as the character\u2019s gender identity becomes a hot topic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"font-size:12px\"><em>Written by. Marco Farinaccia based on Koutaro Sato<\/em>&#8216;s<em> original Japanese article<\/em><br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ark System Works has released DLC character <strong>Bridget <\/strong>as part of Season Pass 2 for the fighting game <em><strong>Guilty Gear -Strive-<\/strong><\/em>. Possibly as a result of Bridget\u2019s debut, the Steam version of the game has seen a huge surge in players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>* Please note that this article contains spoilers for Bridget\u2019s storyline in <em>Guilty Gear -Strive-.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"GUILTY GEAR -STRIVE- Season Pass 2 Playable Character #1 Trailer\" width=\"1160\" height=\"653\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eMlf83j7WD8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Bridget is a character who first appeared in <em>Guilty Gear XX,<\/em> which initially came out for the arcades in 2002. Bridget wields a yo-yo weapon and fights alongside plush teddy bear Roger. Despite being described as a boy in previous <em>Guilty Gear<\/em> games, Bridget\u2019s medium-length golden hair, childlike face, and clothing that is similar to a nun\u2019s habit with spats underneath, caused many players to mistake the character for a girl at first glance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Bridget\u2019s cuteness has led to an unshakeable popularity, and plenty of fans love the character regardless of gender. Bridget is especially popular in Japan and beloved as an \u201cotokonoko\u201d character, a term which refers to males with a feminine appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The following may be considered spoilers, but in <em>Guilty Gear -Strive-<\/em> Bridget comes to terms with her gender identity, as she ends up calling herself a girl. Within Japan, Bridget\u2019s addition to <em>Strive<\/em> is being treated as the return of a pioneering otokonoko character, while outside of Japan, it\u2019s the revelation about her gender identity that is drawing attention. It\u2019s quite interesting to see people both in and outside Japan be excited about the character but for rather different reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite Bridget\u2019s devoted following, it has been around ten years since <em>Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, <\/em>the last game in which she had appeared. As a matter of fact, in the <em>Guilty Gear -Strive-<\/em> closed beta test <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arcsystemworks.jp\/guiltygear\/db\/en\/volume1.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">survey<\/a> that was held prior to the game\u2019s release, Bridget ranked as the number one most requested character in Japan. She was even ranked at number two in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ggxrd.com\/pg2\/info_list.php?y=2015&amp;m=10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">vote<\/a> for which character should be made playable in <em>Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2<\/em>. This clearly shows that Bridget\u2019s popularity hasn\u2019t faded, even after so many years.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" src=\"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14844\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001-696x392.jpg 696w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001-1068x601.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-001-747x420.jpg 747w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Bridget\u2019s new 3D design in <em>Strive<\/em> has been met with a wealth of praise. She was the talk of social media shortly after being released, and even caused a big jump in the game\u2019s player count on Steam. <a href=\"https:\/\/steamdb.info\/app\/1384160\/graphs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SteamDB<\/a> shows a sizeable increase in players on the day that Bridget was released. The game\u2019s concurrent player count had been around 1,000-1500 in early August, but following Bridget\u2019s release, it peaked at over 10,000 players. However, it is true that the game has seen an increase in players whenever a new DLC character has been released, as well as after the large-scale balance patch that was released in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another difference this time around was the fact that the price of both the game itself and Season Pass 1 have recently been decreased. As of August 10 (JST), <em>Guilty Gear -Strive-<\/em> was ranked atop Steam\u2019s Top Sellers list, ahead of other games that are either new or on sale. The price changes likely brought in a number of new players, contributing to the large boost. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"675\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" src=\"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14842\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002-600x338.jpg 600w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002-150x84.jpg 150w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002-696x392.jpg 696w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002-1068x601.jpg 1068w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-002-747x420.jpg 747w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><em>Guilty Gear -Strive-<\/em> is currently available on PC (<a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/1384160\/GUILTY_GEAR_STRIVE\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam<\/a>), PS4, and PS5. To play as the ever-popular Bridget, you must purchase either Season Pass 2 or the individual character DLC. You can also purchase the <em>Ultimate Edition 2022<\/em> which includes the game along with Season Pass 1 and 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ark System Works has released DLC character Bridget as part of Season Pass 2 for the fighting game Guilty Gear -Strive-. Possibly as a result of Bridget\u2019s debut, the Steam version of the game has seen a huge surge in players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":14843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18,17],"class_list":["post-14839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-global-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bridget boosts Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s player count as the character\u2019s gender identity becomes a hot topic - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ark System Works has released DLC character Bridget as part of Season Pass 2 for the fighting game Guilty Gear -Strive-. 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Possibly as a result of Bridget\u2019s debut, the Steam version of the game has seen a huge surge in players.","og_url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/","og_site_name":"AUTOMATON WEST","article_published_time":"2022-08-10T13:04:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-08-10T13:05:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-header.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Koutaro Sato","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_site":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Koutaro Sato","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/"},"author":{"name":"Koutaro Sato","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/a24ffb896abe4c4f749a29d6fd4f0079"},"headline":"Bridget boosts Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s player count as the character\u2019s gender identity becomes a hot topic","datePublished":"2022-08-10T13:04:33+00:00","dateModified":"2022-08-10T13:05:39+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/"},"wordCount":614,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-header.jpg","keywords":["News (Global)","News (Japan-related)"],"articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/","name":"Bridget boosts Guilty Gear Strive\u2019s player count as the character\u2019s gender identity becomes a hot topic - AUTOMATON WEST","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20220810-14839\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/20220810-14839-header.jpg","datePublished":"2022-08-10T13:04:33+00:00","dateModified":"2022-08-10T13:05:39+00:00","description":"Ark System Works has released DLC character Bridget as part of Season Pass 2 for the fighting game Guilty Gear -Strive-. 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