Guilty Gear Xrd[a][b] is a fighting video game sub-series by Arc System Works and part of the Guilty Gear series. Guilty Gear Xrd was developed using Unreal Engine 3, with cel-shaded graphics in place of the series traditional hand drawn sprites. Following the storyline of the last game in the series, Guilty Gear 2: Overture, it introduced seven new characters. The first Xrd game, Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, was released in arcades on February 20, 2014, as the 5th main installment, and for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in Japan and North America in December of the same year. A digital-only release happened in Europe in June 2015, and it was brought to Microsoft Windows via Steam on December 9, 2015. The game has been praised for its cel-shaded graphics and approachable gameplay, but criticized for its non-interactive story mode and smaller roster of characters. A sequel follow-up,[c] titled Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator, was released on consoles in May 2016 in Japan and June 2016 elsewhere as the 6th main installment. An update title to Revelator titled Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 was announced at Arc System Works Fighting Game Award 2016 on January 14, 2017, and released for Arcades in March 2017, while PS3, PS4 and PC versions were released worldwide at the end of May 2017. The Rev 2 update patch for those who bought Revelator on PlayStation Store or Steam was released as a paid DLC. The PS4 also received an exclusive physical disc version.[9]