RPG Website travelled to San Francisco, California a number of weeks in the past to take a look at Granblue Fantasy: Relink. We discovered many new particulars concerning the upcoming motion RPG, together with its February 1, 2024 launch date. We additionally sat down with Motohiro Okubo (CEO of Cygames America), Tetsuya Fukuhara (Granblue Fantasy: Relink Normal Director), and Yasuyuki Kaji (Granblue Fantasy: Relink Director) to study extra about it. There’s loads of new info we discovered concerning the title, together with how buying new characters works and if the sport will embody any games-as-a-service parts.
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– RPG Website: Cygames expanded its enterprise abroad again in April with the institution of Cygames America and Cygames Europe. Are you able to stroll us by means of the challenges of opening up these new branches and the reasoning of why now when Cygames has beforehand partnered with different western publishers beforehand?
Okubo: Cygames has principally achieved enterprise in Japan however with the discharge of those two console titles (Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising & Granblue Fantasy: Relink), we wished to have extra of a presence within the world neighborhood. As you in all probability are already conscious, the market share globally for the video games business, if you happen to account for Japan alone, is sort of small. As a enterprise, we have to increase into different markets so it appeared like a good suggestion to go forward and start that enlargement course of, since we’re releasing two main console titles.
– RPG Website: Within the Anime Expo 2023 presentation for Granblue Fantasy Relink, Cygames talked about that gamers can progress the story to recruit extra occasion members in no matter order they favored. Are you able to elaborate extra on this? Will gamers be capable to select from an inventory of various locations and can every vacation spot’s issue degree change primarily based on when gamers resolve to go to them?
Fukuhara: It’s just a little extra easy than going to a vacation spot and unlocking a personality by finishing a narrative beat. Really, it’s not progressing the story that unlocks the character. By progressing the story, you’ll obtain objects all through the story that may let you unlock a personality from a facility within the base space. That’s what we meant by unlocking characters in no matter order you’d like. You’ll obtain an merchandise and then you definately use the merchandise to unlock your most well-liked character. You’ll simply get objects – that very same merchandise – to do this a number of instances all through the story.
– RPG Website: Cygames has a few years of expertise designing, transforming, and refining a turn-based battle system with the principle Granblue Fantasy recreation. In the meantime, Relink is a full motion RPG the place all the things occurs in real-time. Cygames beforehand labored on Dragalia Misplaced, which was additionally an motion RPG. I would prefer to know the challenges the event staff confronted when conceptualizing how the battles in Granblue Fantasy would work in actual time and did the staff work together with Dragalia Misplaced in any respect when creating Relink?
Fukuhara: These video games are literally developed by fully completely different groups. Despite the fact that as an organization we may be sharing some expertise in the case of on-line communication and on-line play, there wasn’t essentially communication that we are able to show between the 2 groups, however there may need been some affect – however none that lets say for positive. It undoubtedly wasn’t an enormous half.
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– RPG Website: In Granblue Fantasy Relink, gamers progress the principle story in single participant solely, however can deal with quests with different gamers on-line. If the search has not been accomplished by anybody within the occasion but, will completion of the search be counted for everybody within the occasion or will it solely depend that the host accomplished it?
Kaji: Sure. If one particular person within the occasion clears a quest, the individuals which are enjoying with them may also depend as a transparent for them as effectively – with one notable exception. Let’s, for instance, say that participant 1 has progressed a lot additional than the opposite gamers and these gamers haven’t really unlocked this quest but, you may nonetheless play with one another; nonetheless, the completion will solely depend for participant 1. It gained’t depend for the others who haven’t gotten that far but to unlock that quest.
Fukuhara: You do get the identical rewards although, regardless that it doesn’t depend as accomplished. You’ll nonetheless get rewarded.
– RPG Website: Granblue Fantasy Relink is trying prefer it’ll have loads of playable characters to select from. Are expertise factors shared with reserve occasion members or will gamers must grind expertise factors on characters they have not been actively utilizing?
Kaji: It relies on which mode you’re enjoying. If you happen to’re enjoying the principle story, all characters will obtain the identical quantity of expertise factors, in order that they’ll be leveling up collectively. If you happen to go on any of the quests, simply the 4 occasion members you’re utilizing will obtain the expertise factors.
There’s one other exception to this method. Earlier (throughout a presentation proven to the press) after we had been speaking concerning the character upgrades system, that’s really from a pool of factors which are shared by your entire occasion. So that you’ll be incomes these improve factors altogether and you need to use these factors for whichever character you need. If you happen to’re occurring quests with one character, the character factors that you simply get hold of with that character are going to the identical pool, so you need to use these improve factors to improve no matter character you’d like.
– RPG Website: Will Granblue Fantasy Relink be a stay service recreation? Does it have day by day and/or weekly actions gamers to work in the direction of and can there be some form of battle move? Does it require an web connection to play?
Fukuhara: The sport just isn’t a stay service recreation. So far as dailies and weeklies are involved, there’s probably not something like that within the recreation. If you happen to progress the sport into the later levels, there’s a bonus system for enjoying the sport however there’s not any form of system arrange the place you’re going to actually harm your self by lacking days of play. There’s nothing that requires you to come back again and play on a regular basis. There additionally gained’t be any battle passes. It may be performed offline.
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– RPG Website: Are there any plans so as to add new playable characters and levels in content material updates after Granblue Fantasy Relink launches?
Fukuhara: As for what we are able to discuss proper now, we want to point out that the story of the sport does wrap up neatly. It’s not a cliffhanger. So far as updating the story after it releases, it’s already a full story. However for individuals who fully performed the story they usually’ve gotten loads of the sport already, we will probably be releasing endgame content material – the actually troublesome stuff for gamers to play by means of as effectively. Aside from that, it’s nonetheless fairly a bit off for the discharge date of the sport, so we’ve nothing else so as to add at the moment.