Striving to understand Guilty Gear's lore for Guilty Gear Strive

Buckle up

 

 

If you’re looking for something to chew on until Guilty Gear Strive releases June 11th, look no further than its story. Guilty Gear’s narrative is far from “easily digestible,” so let’s all take a lore laxative and gloss over some of the story’s broader strokes. Below is an overview of every character’s story arc leading up to the events of Strive. It’s the kind of series that uses narrative to justify changes to characters' in-game moves between iterations: a beautiful, if not convoluted, piece of art.

 

So, what even is a Gear? And why is it guilty? Gears are augmented beings. Originally intended to speed up our biological advancement—and cure disease along the way—the military naturally gravitated toward Gears to use as weapons of war.

 

Keep in mind, this is a story told across decades of arcade and console games, manga, Japanese drama CDs, literal pachinko machines—it’s a wild ride. But before we get into each character, we must first set the stage.

 

 

In 1999, an unknown entity named the Universal Will attempted to materialize itself through the world’s technology. All technology became dubbed as “Black Tech” and banned; however, humanity came to replace tech with magic taught to them by five suddenly appearing apostles. As magic integrated itself into society over the years, three scientists utilized it to work together on the Gear Project: Frederick Bulsara, Aria Hale, and That Man (later revealed as Asuka R. Kreutz). Two lovers and their enigmatic friend.

 

Aria got sick, so Frederick and That Man tred (and failed) to cure her. She rejected cryosleep because she wouldn’t be able to see Frederick again, but That Man refused to accept Aria’s loss. Without consent, he turned Frederick into a Gear—the Prototype Gear—to grant him immortality. He then preserved what remained of Aria by turning her into a Gear, as well. Frederick awoke with That Man and Aria nowhere to be found. Once he realized what happened to him, he escaped the lab. He developed a headband to suppress the Gear cells in his body, hiding his true identity, and vowed vengeance on That Man.

 

 

Source: Destructoid