All eyes were on the second announcement of Persona's 25th anniversary reveals, and for longtime fighting game fans, it did not disappoint. Persona 4 Arena, or more accurately the definitive version, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, is receiving a modern port for PC, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. While it may not be the most anticipated announcement to come from the anniversary, it was a nice surprise, especially for those who missed its original 2014 release on PS3/Xbox 360. However, as with any new fighting game coming out in the future, Persona 4's fighting game faces a very unfortunate reality currently: It's not releasing with rollback netcode.
Obviously rollback netcode is a relatively recent luxury for fighting game fans, given how excellent the implementation has been in Guilty Gear Strive, and in the beta for BlazBlue: Central Fiction. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is also an Arc System Works-developed fighting game, but as confirmed by a Famitsu interview with Persona creative director Kazuhisa Wada, Atlus is only considering the implementation of rollback netcode for a future patch. Not launching with rollback netcode, despite all the good it can do for fighting games both new and old, is a shame. Persona 4 Arena Ultimax will not benefit from launching without it.
Rollback Netcode is Necessary For Fighting Games Now
While delay-based netcode has been the standard for online fighting games for years, Arc System Works has proved that rollback netcode functionality exemplifies itself as the new standard for network connectivity in online fighting games. Rollback netcode technology, specifically GGPO (Good Game Peace Out), has been a promising network architecture that's been in development for years. However, only in recent years has official implementation of rollback netcode proved the initial promise of the software technology: To provide a near-lagless fighting game experience online. As of 2019, GGPO was licensed as open-source software for all fighting games to use.
The end result isn't quite "lagless," but compared to the alternative, is miles better than delay-based netcode. Arc System Works recognized this, and to some extent has paved the way for future fighting games to implement a similar system. Despite gripes with the lobby system and other aspects, the online gameplay of Guilty Gear Strive with rollback netcode is largely excellent. Depending on connection quality, input lag is near miniscule, and there's often very little connection drops or hitching. Even older ArcSys games like Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R, and more recently with BlazBlue: Central Fiction (beta), have proved that rollback should be the standard.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Would Benefit From Launching with Rollback
This is why Persona 4 Arena Ultimax launching without rollback netcode is more of an overarching issue, rather than a niche fan request. Rollback netcode generally encourages more players to stick around and play online, which in turn, leads to a larger playerbase for longer. Even for the majority of players who aren't looking to play the game at any semblance of a high level, rollback netcode still benefits those players. Both sides of the coin benefit from rollback netcode: Players looking to compete on a serious level can do so from home, as well as Persona fans looking to challenge their friends casually can all benefit from a greater online experience.
Arc System Works has the technical ability to implement its own excellent rollback netcode into Persona 4 Arena Ultimax as well, it's just a matter of whether Atlus wants to support the endeavor fully. That being said, the implementation of rollback netcode has never not benefitted a game previously. Case in point with Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R and BlazBlue: Central Fiction: Both games saw a huge uptick in each game's playerbase on Steam Charts when both received rollback netcode updates.
With a more recent example, Arc System Works' BlazBlue: Central Fiction rollback beta raised the game's peak playerbase from 284 (November 2021) to 4,733 players (Last 30 Days). That's an almost 3,000% increase in peak concurrent players, and is still over 3,000 more players than its initial Steam release in 2017 (1,031 players). Guilty Gear Plus R saw a huge increase in players with its beta rollback update, going from 32 peak players (September 2020) to 2,330 players (October 2020), and has remained in the hundreds ever since, even in spite of Guilty Gear Strive's successful release.
Clearly the publisher is considering the idea, but Atlus may be weighing whether the playerbase benefit may be worth the investment, even though it's hard to argue that it isn't. The Guilty Gear and BlazBlue franchises are comparatively niche next to Persona, but a rollback update for Persona 4 Arena Ultimax could be similarly huge. It would make more sense to launch with rollback netcode, rather than update the game later, but that would understandably increase development time. That being said, the benefits to the game's playerbase at launch, as well as post-launch, would make rollback netcode a lucrative pre-launch investment that'd likely be praised.
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax releases on March 17, 2022, for PC, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.
Source: Steam Charts
