by Danreb VictorioWhen Granblue Fantasy: Relink came out in 2024, I thought it was a really solid title with plenty of potential after rolling credits because of a solid endgame structure. The best part was that it didn’t take too long to get there, and the journey was actually quite enjoyable. Now the Granblue team has come up with Endless Ragnarok, a massive expansion to the original Granblue Fantasy: Relink that was originally planned to be DLC, but ended up becoming its own SKU. We had a chance to go hands-on with Endless Ragnarok after a quick presentation, and then had a short conversation after that with the game’s creative director, Tetsuya Fukuhara and narrative director, Sanshiro Hidaka.
As you’ll learn later in my interview with Fukuhara and Hidaka, Endless Ragnarok is going to feature a lot of new content. For the way that I enjoyed the release, the biggest new features to me are the new Summons and Master Traits. I only played for around 30 minutes and only had time to try out two battles of varying difficulty to really get a feel for how these new mechanics work.
The demo starts pretty much where Relink left off after taking down Proto Bahamut. After some back and forth, Lyria gets your team the ability to call Summons, and after walking around the hub village, regaining my bearings a little bit (after all, it’s been years since January 2024), I tried out one of the new missions, which was really just a boss fight.
One thing I noticed right off the bat was the battle definitely seemed a tad more difficult and drawn out than I remember. The original game felt easier, and this was different, so I didn’t know if the demo was tuned or if the game was made harder. Still, it was welcoming to see more challenge from the enemies, but it was also nerveracking to see if my CPU party would be able to help me back up during the times my character fell.
After I finally filled the Summon gauge to use one, I decided to use the Golem, because it seemed to be the cheapest of the four there. When called upon, aside from being an attack themselves, you’re invincible for a limited time and can really put the hurt on enemies. I’d say they’re a pretty worthy addition to an already solid battle system. I didn’t have enough time to really see how much impact Master Traits have, but they’re a new progression system for characters who reach level 100. That’s not technically a me thing, but there’s bound to be some value here for those who intend on really diving into the post-game.
One thing that I really wish I got to try but didn’t was the new Conflux Mode, a solo-only roguelite mode that offers rare and higher-tier upgrades and equippables for your characters. Conflux is unlocked while playing through a new sidequest in Seedhollow.
We were eventually brought back to the private cabana, where initial presentations were held, and that’s where I was able to get some questions in for Mr. Fukuhara and Mr. Hidaka.
Q&A with Tetsuya Fukuhara and Sanshiro Hidaka
As the team took in feedback for Granblue Fantasy: Relink, when did you decide to start developing Endless Ragnarok?
Tetsuya Fukuhara (TF): With the original release Relink, we actually had no plans for an update or an expansion of this size. Our original plan was to just include the updates for the original game. But because there were so many voices that wanted to see more and more of Relink, this far exceeded our expectations for the amount of development support we had for the game. That led to our kind of swift decision to start development for Endless Ragnarok.
Sanshiro Hidaka (SH): We did consider making a traditional sequel, but because we’re still relatively new to the console gaming industry, we decided that we really wanted to get this content out to our fans as soon as possible. We decided to settle on a new game instead of one major expansion especially with how challenging it is for the developers to deal with an expansion that was getting as big as this one. The snap decision to make Endless Ragnarok led to really tight deadlines, and where were a lot of kinds of ideas and desires expressed for what people wanted to include in the game.
TF: We added things like summons and wanted to have as much impact as possible. Development was a major undertaking but despite the scale of the game, there weren’t any ideas that we had to give up on.
Danreb Victorio, SmashPad (SP): The presentation before our demo mentioned that the game will have 20-30 hours of gameplay. I’m curious as to what you mean by my gameplay. Does this mean there’s 20-30 hours of gameplay, including postgame content? Or are we talking just the campaign alone, along with the new missions after that?
SH: It is technically story content, but in Relink, you had a lot of content that happened after the story ended. The direction is a little different in Endless Ragnarok. The stories are unlocked in connection with the quest. So, as you clear a quest, you unlock more story content, and it’s not chapter by chapter the way it was in Relink. So when all of that is taken into account, there is over 30 hours of gameplay, but the story walks a little bit slower. Then, after the story is completed, there’s a little bit of extra game content beyond that.
SP: When I played the original American release a few years ago, one of the reasons I recommended it was because it only took me about 10 hours to get through the base story, and I didn’t do anything after that, and part of the reason was that it released during a crowded time for JRPG fans. We had Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth come out a week before, Persona 3 Reload launched the week after Relink, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth came out later that month. I’m looking at the calendar now, and there aren’t many JRPGs coming out in July, so I was wondering if that played a role in next month’s release.
TF: Because we are a rather new RPG, it is preferable to avoid strong competitors. As for the release of Relink, we decided pretty early to release it in late January, and that’s when titles like Ace Attorney, Final Fantasy, Like a Dragon, Persona 3 all came out, and we were also taken a little bit off guard by that.
SP: I’m friends with the director of Persona, (starts laughing) and he came to me and I asked “Why did you purposely try to overlap with our release?” His response was, “I didn’t know that was happening.”
As I mentioned, I stopped playing after the 10-hour campaign because I was playing other things. What would your advie be to other players like me to continue to play the game after the credits roll?
SH: After the credits roll in Relink, you enter that gameplay loop where you start chasing quests to strengthen your characters. Completing those quests helps you complete Endless Ragnarok as well. They’ve added features to the games that make completing those quests easier than they were before. We’re also expecting new players with the game’s release on the Switch 2, so we thought it would really help to make it easier for them to see the conclusion.
TF: In addition, if you like to play co-op mode, many veteran players are available to guide you through the game. In Endless Ragnarok, even if you prefer single player mode, a lot of features have been to make progression easier. One example we talked about in the presentation was the addition of the new single-player mode, Conflux, where you can get a lot of items to enhance and develop your characters in one go, allowing you to bump them up at a quick rate.
SH: layers who want to take on quests but don’t want to take on co-op, we also have this. Mechanic called backup characters, which allows you to borrow characters that other players have trained up to put in your party.
We appreciate the time that Cygames, Testuya Fukuhara, and Sanshiro Hidaka took to speak with us. Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok comes out on July 9 for the PC, PlayStation 5, and Switch 2. A demo for Endless Ragnarok is available now.
