BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle does not hide what it is. The title is the pitch: BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth and RWBY in the same ring, two fighters per side, one button-mashed crossover. Arc System Works developed it and published it with PQube and Arc System Works America, and the fighting is as tight as the studio’s reputation suggests. The problem is everything around the fighting.
Trailer, via arcsystemworks.
Four Universes, One Phantom Field
The roster is the draw, and it is a strange one. Cross Tag Battle pulls characters from BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth and Rooster Teeth’s RWBY. RWBY is the only series in the base game that did not begin as a fighting or hack-and-slash title, and the game labels it by the whole franchise rather than a single entry — a contrast with the strict Persona 4 Arena branding elsewhere on the character select.
The plot is a crossover excuse dressed as cosmology. A singularity called the “Phantom Field” mixes reality with other universes. When the “Keystone” splits into four fragments, the female voice system “System XX” tells a main character to keep it away from the others and reach the goal, which drags in fighters who each want to get home. The fragments merge, and the cast stops the system from rewriting the universe.
Then Hazama possesses the primary keystone and tries to hijack the Takemagahara System. Takemagahara detects the remnants of Yūki Terumi inside him and copies his genes to build a clone of Susano’o as a countermeasure, which indirectly destroys the multiverse. System XX holds the clone back while a regretful Hazama becomes the multiversal tournament’s conductor. He turns keystone hunting into stamp collecting and adds three more universes, hoping the winners will help him and System defeat the clone.
Ragna the Bloodedge and Naoto Kurogane beat the clone. System XX, critically weakened, cannot send anyone home. The story ends with the cast locked in an endless Tag Team battle royale, waiting for her to recover.
Two Fighters, One Health Bar Between Them
The 2-vs-2 tag system is where Cross Tag Battle earns its keep. Players control one of two selected characters at a time and switch on command. Alongside the standard meter for special and EX moves, there is an assist meter. Spend it and the second character throws out an assist attack to extend a combo or push the opponent away; spend all of it on “Cross Burst” to escape a bad spot.
Matches follow Marvel vs. Capcom logic. One character can lose all health and the round continues until both are down.
The controls were simplified compared to mainline BlazBlue and the other participating series. Every character gets universal options: an overhead on the heavy button, an invincible reversal, auto combos. Series-specific mechanics survive but reworked — the Persona system for the Persona cast, Reverse Beat for the Under Night In-Birth cast, Reflector for the Akatsuki Blitzkampf cast.
Twenty at Launch, Fifty-Three by Version 2.0
The base game shipped with twenty playable characters. Another twenty arrived as “Season 1” DLC. On June 7, 2018, Minoru Kidooka confirmed “Season 2” DLC for the arcade edition in April 2019 and the console version in May 2019. Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long were changed to free downloadable content; the rest cost money.
- Naoto Kurogane, Teddie, Seth and Heart Aino came with the Japanese arcade release, then as paid content in the version 1.5 update for PC and console
- Version 2.0 added battle changes, new story content, and Celica A. Mercury, Susano’o, Elizabeth, Tohru Adachi, Hilda and Neopolitan
- Senran Kagura and Akatsuki Blitzkampf joined as the sixth and seventh series, bringing Yumi, Akatsuki and Blitztank
That is 53 playable characters in total as of Version 2.0, counting the base roster and every addition. The arcade version reached Japan in 2019, after the console and PC launch, and Amazon Luna got a version in 2021. The Special Edition with all post-launch content landed on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S in 2023.
Where the Money Went
The DLC structure is the sore point, and it is not a small one. Half the launch roster’s worth of fighters sat behind a paywall, and the free exceptions — Blake and Yang — only highlight how much of the rest was not. Version 2.0’s story content and battle changes are real additions. They also arrived after the game had already asked players to pay for extra fighters.
The visuals, music, online play and mechanics drew praise at release. The complaints centered on thin content at launch and the DLC practices. Both are fair. A fighting game lives on its roster, and Cross Tag Battle launched with a roster that felt like a first installment.
What the Crossover Actually Proves
Cross Tag Battle is a good fighting game wrapped in a frustrating package. The tag mechanics work, the assist meter gives matches a second layer beyond the standard meter, and Cross Burst is a genuine escape valve rather than a gimmick. Simplified controls make the crossover readable for newcomers without flattening the series-specific systems underneath.
The roster sprawl is the real achievement. Fifty-three characters across seven series, including a web animation that had no business standing beside BlazBlue and Persona, is a crossover few studios would attempt.
The launch content is the real failure. Arc System Works built a game worth playing and then sold it in pieces, and the version that exists now is the one that should have shipped. The Phantom Field plot is nonsense in the best crossover tradition, but nonsense that commits to a multiverse-destroying clone and an endless battle royale is at least nonsense with follow-through.
Run the Numbers
- Release year: 2018
- Platforms: Arcade, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Windows
- Later platforms: Amazon Luna (2021), Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S (2023)
- Arcade version in Japan: 2019
- Developer and publishers: Arc System Works; PQube; Arc System Works America
- Base roster: 20 characters
- Total roster as of Version 2.0: 53 playable characters
- Season 2 DLC confirmed by Minoru Kidooka on June 7, 2018
- Critic aggregate: 7.7/10 from 7 outlets
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