At Summer Game Fest: Play Days 2026, we had the opportunity to chat with Tetsuya Fukahara (Creative Director of the Granblue Fantasy series) and Sanshiro Hidaka (Director of Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok) of Cygames about the company’s upcoming game, Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok. The original game was released in January 2024, and just over two years later, Cygames is back with Endless Ragnarok, a meaty expansion that packs in a ton of new content.

Our interview was conducted as part of a group session, and we’ve included everything below. This includes exploring Fraux and Fediel, adding playable summons, developing for Switch 2, and much more. Please enjoy this interview, and a huge thank you to the teams at Cygames and ONE PR for making this possible!

TF: Tetsuya Fukahara, Creative Director
SH: Sanshiro Hidaka, Director

What was the design process between Fraux and Fediel and their play styles?

SH: First off, with Fraux, her biggest component is that she has two different stances. Originally, in the browser version of Granblue Fantasy, she has two stances there as well. So when we transformed her into an action RPG character, we had to figure out how to represent those two stances in a 3D environment.

One stance, as you combo, is more focused on AoE damage, attacking all the enemies around her. The other one is more focused on single-target damage and quickly getting through the combo to level up the damage a little quicker. So one is set on AoE, and one is set on single-target.

The two stances actually weave in and out of each other in a very smooth way, and they come with two different gauges. As you weave in and out, you can build both gauges seamlessly. When you fill both gauges together, that allows you to use a skill without triggering the skill’s cooldown. So you can immediately recast a skill as one of her primary gameplay mechanics.

The idea is spamming lots of skills, spamming lots of attacks, and hitting the enemy with as many components as possible. That all builds on top of itself. So combo leads into combo, skill leads into combo, and there are a lot of satisfying loops.

One very specific thing about Fraux is that her visuals are really unique because she fights using the tarot-based primal beast called the Devil, which you probably noticed during the play session.

Fediel, however, is close to a godlike existence in the game, so her animations are all very unique and specific to her as well. A lot of effort was put into representing her in this action RPG environment.

In the original Granblue Fantasy, Fediel is the dragon of darkness, which gives her that godlike status. To reflect her overwhelming ability and power, when she attacks from afar, she uses a variety of magic. When she attacks up close, she uses skills that represent her skills from the browser game, giving her effective applications at both distant and close ranges. So she is something of an all-rounder.

Another thing specific to her is that she has a warp mechanic. She can warp through enemy attacks, warp to get close to enemies, and warp to get away from enemies. She has a unique mobility that other characters do not have.

She also has a risk-versus-reward element because she has a follow-up attack, or she can begin these brutal slashing attacks. However, while she is using this slashing combo, she is effectively immobile, which opens her up to counterattacks. So you have to pick your battles carefully when you are accessing the most powerful parts of her kit.

The key to using her well is deciding when it is appropriate to utilize her mobility and when you can really stop and assess the technical aspects of her character, focusing on that heavy combo damage. Another really powerful part of her kit is that she has a skill that allows her to counterattack the enemy. If you do it with perfect timing, it increases the power of the counterattack and then links directly into her heavy combo attack, greatly increasing her skill ceiling as well.

There is a lot of content in this expansion. How did you decide to make this an expansion rather than an entire sequel?

SH: The first thing I can say about that is, when we launched the original Relink, the player feedback and enthusiasm we got, all the voices saying they wanted more updates and more Relink, was actually way more than we expected.

In order to answer those calls, we wanted to be able to produce something as quickly as possible. As you know, from the original announcement to the launch, Relink took quite a lot of development time. So we wanted to be able to deliver a product as quickly as possible for the players who wanted more Relink.

Because Cygames is still new to the console development world, we wanted to deliver a high-quality expansion rather than focus on a sequel that might take too much development time.

Building on that, with this being an expansion and bringing it once again to PlayStation, you are also introducing a new platform with Switch 2. Were there any challenges, and how was development for the platform?

TF: The immediate thing that comes to mind is that these different platforms feature different UI. When we were talking about online co-op, we had to redo the UI from the ground up so that it fit all platforms instead of just PlayStation or just PC. We had to consider everything as one environment instead of different environments.

SH: As for developing the game for Switch 2, because it uses DLSS, we were actually able to implement the graphics pretty smoothly without much trouble there.

When we were developing the Switch 2 version in the office, we noticed it was more important to focus on how, with the Switch 2, you go from TV mode to handheld mode, and how that was now a factor to think about. We wanted to provide the same experience no matter which mode you choose to play in, so we put a lot of effort into making sure the frame rate would be consistent between both modes.

TF: One thing I was really excited about when it came to producing the game for Switch 2 is that it has a local wireless feature where you can play in the same room next to your friends. It reminded me of playing Monster Hunter on the PSP using a similar feature back in the day. That was something I was looking forward to about developing for Switch 2. Now, with the Switch 2 version, it is really easy to get together with your friends and play in the same room, which is a new, fun experience.

One thing I did want to ask is about what you touched on earlier, talking about the arguments that came out in the office when everyone was trying to figure out how this character would play, what this character would do, and how you would translate all of that. How many different devs in different divisions had different ideas about what the characters we saw in the game could actually play like? How many scrapped ideas were there that could have potentially been implemented as a different way to play that character?

TF: Step one is, as you know, the game comes from the mobile browser version, which features very simplified chibi art. Of course, we have people on staff who have their favorite characters in the game. The first thing we do is collect all the people who favor that particular character, and we gather ideas to have a brainstorming session to decide, “Okay, how can we represent this character in a new way?”

Within these brainstorming sessions, everyone, of course, has different ideas about how to realize these characters, and no idea is perfect. We do not get it right in a single session. Rather, it takes about two or three sessions of coming together and figuring out what would be the most fun way to represent this character.

SH: It is very similar with the summons as well, where we gather ideas, really flesh them out, and also look at the larger balance. We look at the entire scene and compare what we already cut, what we need to do, and the development as a whole. It is a bit of a bigger picture than just the characters involved.

TF: While we have these little pods working on the characters, we also have a core team, including the directors and other folks who are involved with the battles, to make sure that the balance is maintained throughout this entire process.

I only got a few minutes with it, but could you dive into the Conflux mode? Can we discuss what the goal is for that mode, how you see players playing it, and how it works into the gameplay loop overall?

TF: The overall goal for the game is that if you have a specific character that you want to quickly improve or make progress with, that is the best mode to achieve it in.

SH: As for the gameplay loop itself, you can kind of consider the Conflux itself parallel with the main gameplay loop of story and co-op quests. If you have another character that you want to begin using, but you are hesitant because you have not made enough progression with them, then you can take them to the Conflux, get them up to par with your main crew, and then bring them back into the core quests with other folks.

Of course, you can still progress your characters using the traditional method of playing through co-op quests. But since this is solo content, if you just have 15 or 20 minutes to spare, you can get all the materials you need to upgrade the characters and their weapons. So it is a great way to make progression in addition to the normal gameplay.

Building on that, you mentioned that it is solo content. Are there any plans in the future to implement co-op in the Conflux roguelike mode?

TF: We have no plans to introduce multiplayer to the Conflux because it is a game mode that features randomly selected maps with unique buffs. That is kind of a tricky thing to balance for a multiplayer environment.

SH: Another consideration is playtime. With co-op content, it is kind of a shorter time, between five and 10 minutes, but with the Conflux, it is 15 to 20 minutes. That is easier to organize on your own rather than organizing the time of other people as well. We wanted a mode that people could do on their own when they want to use as much time as they would like to work on their progression.

I do want to ask, just to understand how they play, who is your favorite character to lead with, as well as the party that matches that?

Cygames Translator: So, for Fukahara-san, he really likes the buff old guys. He likes big bodies and lots of power. So Vaseraga and Ghandagoza are the characters he finds himself going to.

SH: My preference is playing healers in MMORPGs, so I found myself using Cagliostro the most because I really liked healing, reviving, and throwing out buffs.

Of the new characters, he really likes playing Maglielle because she has a shield that she can move freely around the battlefield. If you have a big, buff old dude that you need to protect, it is really easy to use her barrier to get them to safety quickly.

With the new story content, we got a peek at the beginning section of Endless Ragnarok. How much additional story content is there beyond the main game?

SH: It differs a little bit in structure from the story found in Relink, where the quests and the main story were separate entities. In Endless Ragnarok, as you complete quests and those multiplayer quests, more of the story will begin to unlock.

From the opening of Endless Ragnarok’s story to the conclusion of the story, it is kind of hard to separate, and it is not separated into chapters. So it will be 20 to 30 hours of additional gameplay.

I am curious, as a Granblue question, will any of the Relink-exclusive characters appear in other Granblue games in the future?

SH: After the launch of Relink, we actually had a lot of people interested in that very same topic. Introducing them as a side story in the mobile browser game is a bit of a complex discussion, but let’s see where we go from here once Endless Ragnarok is released.

Also, for the fighting game as well, is there a chance they can appear in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising?

TF: There are many, many voices calling for the inclusion of both Id and Maglielle, so we certainly will not deny the possibility.

Can we talk a little bit more about the summons and the decision to make them playable? That was a really fun part about the demo, being able to control these giant creatures that were completely different from my team. How did that come to be, instead of just having them be a big flourish in the battle, but actually being able to control them?

TF: When we were developing the game, we wanted to lean on Relink’s most powerful point, which is that each individual character has unique gameplay mechanics. When we were thinking of Endless Ragnarok, of course, we wanted to include as many characters as we possibly could, but there has to be a balance between development time and the amount of content that we can actually put into the game.

After deciding which new characters we could put in, we wanted a way to include as many other characters as possible with unique gameplay elements, and that is why we decided to make them controllable.

For an action game, there needs to be a level of immersion in the action itself. If you have a summon that is just an animation, that is not nearly as immersive as controlling the summon for yourself.

SH: One big inspiration for the system was actually the PlayStation 1 game Tobal No. 2. Tobal No. 2 featured a system where the main cast was just over a dozen characters or so, but in the quest mode, you could use over 400 characters of all power levels. It was a super crazy idea. It was a lot of fun, and I remember having a lot of fun with it myself.

When we were discussing how to implement this, I originally thought, “Yeah, this is just like the Guardian Heroes system.” Then Fukahara-san was like, “No, no, no, this is Tobal No. 2.”

With the summons, how did the team go about achieving the scale behind that? In the battles, you are sometimes even larger than the enemy you are facing. With so many different summons available to obtain, how did the team go about achieving that scale?

SH: We already had the models and animations mostly set when we went into this system. However, by making them completely playable, we had to redo the camera, which I thought was going to have a lot of implementation costs.

When we pitched the idea to the team, most people were like, “Ah, it does not matter that it costs a lot. We will figure it out. We have got this.” So we really had that fighting spirit to get it done.

We did not really have an intelligent way to go about it. We just, through very hard work, made it so it feels comfortable to play.

TF: Actually, in the beginning stages of summon development, we thought we would have to create a separate space to activate the summon and bring the enemy in there as well because of the lack of memory in the game. But we had a really talented programmer who was able to figure out how to make it a seamless experience, which really helped solidify the immersive experience we were going for.

SH: We also did a lot of detailed adjustments for each summon, from making camera adjustments to adjusting the size a little bit, even though hopefully it does not mess with the impression of that character, to make sure even those massive summons were represented well.

You mentioned Tobal No. 2 being an inspiration. Were there any other games that you took inspiration from and brought over into Relink?

TF: Another inspiration we took into the buffs of the Conflux mode came from Honkai: Star Rail and Wuthering Waves, which have similar systems. We thought taking that buff system and applying it to Relink’s combat system would be really fun.

TF: Minigames also feature this type of system in the stages, right? You might recall the crab-searching minigame from the original title, where you look for Wee Pincers. We looked to Far Cry 3 to have an even more difficult version of that same minigame. So we are bullying the players a little bit. Even though you see them on the map, you might have to look vertically, under something, or over something to locate these new crabs.

Another game that we referenced was Zenless Zone Zero. If you are familiar with this game, all the characters feature bespoke animations for everything they do, from dashing to evading. All the animations really speak to who that character is, and we wanted to reflect that with our new additions as well. When we began development of Endless Ragnarok, Zenless Zone Zero had just come out, so that was a bit of an inspiration too. We had already done that with Relink, where we gave bespoke animations to every character to hone in on their character. But that game reminded us that this is something we needed to pursue yet again with our new additions.

One example of this is actually Gallanza, who is a big, buff dude. It would not make sense for him to use the generic rolling animation that we use for other characters for evasion. So he does more of a big-dude hop, as opposed to the “shwump” that other characters do. That is one way we made the animations even more reflective of the new characters.

Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok launches July 9 for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC. For more on Endless Ragnarok, check out our exclusive Summer Game Fest preview.