Options 2 and 3 seem most likely. He seems like a blend of Ludger and Sorey, with slightly toned down edgelord elements from Velvet. More cool and less over designed/skimpy.
I do wish they would go back to Xillia's combat, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they improved the behind the back perspective combat they've been trying recently. Though, that's assuming they've put as much effort revitalizing the combat mechanics as they have the visuals. Just like the visuals, for better or for worse the general audiences they are probably aiming to get a chunk of with this won't play a game with 2D combat, they'd prefer something more cinematic. God of War struck a good balance between cinematic and gameplay focused though, and had much more engaging combat than say Berseria for me, so I would accept some compromise if they pull it off.
Then again maybe they're taking influence from DMC like they've seemingly always been slightly adjacent to, and we get lite-character action ala NieR Automata.
