Online fighting games during COVID: How rollback helps us connect

Enlarge / Sol Badguy faces off against Faust in Guilty Gear Strive, the latest entry in the long-running fighting game series coming in April.

As a huge fighting-game fan I'm always excited when a new game comes out. No other genre captures my attention in the same way. The feeling of discovery, the community and competitive spirit-a good release means potentially thousands of hours of playing and learning, not to mention all the sharing and talking with fellow players.

This week I'm excited about Guilty Gear Strive, releasing April 9 on PS4, PS5, and PC. There's an open beta this week, and Ars got early access to try it out, including the newly improved netcode.

I'm happy to report that the beta is already doing the right things to make an online game feel as much like an offline one as possible.

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