Guilty Gear Strive brings back Bridget for season 2

Guilty Gear Strive’s second season of characters kicked off Monday with the release of Bridget, the yo-yo-wielding, habit-wearing fighter who first joined the series with 2002’s Guilty gear X2. We have three additional characters in the works Guilty Gear Strive’s season 2 pass, which will run through 2023.

For players looking to get into Guilty Gear, developer Arc System Works describes Bridget as an “easy to pick up, standard style of character” with solid long-range attacks and… a teddy bear. Bridget is part of the $24.99 season package, or can be bought separately for $6.99. The developer also released a starter guide video for Bridget, who wasn’t playable in the recent Guilty Gear Xrd games.

Bridget’s arrival in Guilty Gear StriveThis is significant not only for the launch of the second season’s DLC but also because it confirms the transgender character. Bridget’s lore and history are complicated, and in previous entries in the Guilty Gear series, her sexuality and a lack of clarity on her gender identity were sometimes played for dramatic effect or comedic purposes. However, in StriveBridget finally comes out as transgender as shown in this scene featuring Bridget and Ky Kiske interacting with relative newcomer Goldlewis.

Bridget was identified as male in previous Guilty Gear games. Other characters used both male and feminine pronouns to refer to Bridget. Bridget’s official backstory, which refers to Bridget in gender neutral terms, states that she had a twin brother. According to local legend, twins of identical genders are bad luck. Bridget’s wealthy parents thus raised her as a girl to protect her from harm, but she later sets off as a bounty hunter to both find success — thus proving the superstition false — and “behav[e] like a man” battling the Guilty Gear roster.

Bridget attracted a lot of people, cosplayers included, to the role over the 20-year period, in spite of the fact that there were some long-standing jokes regarding her sexuality or gender identity. Those same tropes made her return to the Guilty Gear franchise uncertain, but it appears that Arc System Works is fully embracing her trans identity — no longer as fodder for storytelling tropes, but as part of an ever-diversifying roster for Guilty Gear Strive.