Endless Ragnarok Team Outlines New Features and Excitement for Nintendo Switch 2

What the report says

Granblue Fantasy: Relink is a cooperative action RPG based in a sky-world that has seen over two million sales to date. Known for its dynamic combat and ensemble cast of characters, Relink will soon be getting a major expansion called Endless Ragnarok, which will add a new story, new playable characters, expanded combat systems, new quests, new progression systems, and even a new game mode.In addition to getting a chance to play the game, which I thoroughly enjoyed (I’ll share more on our next podcast), I also had the opportunity to sit down with Tetsuya Fukuhara (Creative Director of the Granblue Fantasy series) and Sanshiro Hidaka (Director of Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok) at Summer Game Fest Play Days for an interview.

Below is a rundown of many of the things I learned during my time spent with them.As the Granblue Fantasy franchise continues to increase with video games, anime, comics, and novels, there was so much enthusiasm and desire for more content in Relink, so the developers took notice. But the game wasn’t originally intended as a live-service game, so they went with a major expansion to Relink. But instead of just adding new stories and characters, they’ve also revamped the user interface, introduced many quality of life features, and adjusted the game balance. Endless Ragnarok’s narrative will begin after completing the Relink late game quest of The Tale Bahamut’s Rage.

All in all, they are adding 1.5 times the content from the original, resulting in at least 20 to 30 hours of additional playtime.New characters include Gallanza and Maglielle (who are now allies), Beatrix, Eustace, Fraux, and Fediel. And each of these characters will focus on one of the brand new six elements being introduced in this expansion.The combat system is also evolving to introduce a summons system, where players can call and control new allies to take the spotlight for a temporary amount of time. On top of more powerful moves, summons are also invincible.

Key details

Some summons will also increase the amount of recovery items or produce a barrier field where you can also gain invincibility when you enter it.They are also adding a new progression system into the game that will be applied to every character in order to provide a fresh experience for longtime players but also give more avenues for player expression. So now, every character will have three play styles using the master trade system. If you are familiar with the Diablo series, it will be a similar experience. As you play with a character, you will gradually unlock more features in the play style you select.The assist mode (an accessibility option that helps the player choose when to evade or what skills to use) can also be enabled within the higher tiers of Endless Ragnorok, a change from the base Relink game, in order to help more players experience the full game even if they are not high level action gamers.The developers were particularly excited to bring Granblue Fantasy to Nintendo Switch 2, stating the local wireless play as something they are especially looking forward to having.

This will give players the opportunity to play the game in the same room with friends, which harkens back to an era when people would gather together with their mobile systems and play in the same room.As far as the technical aspects of bringing the game to Switch 2, the developers cited crossplay as one of the more difficult pieces, because every platform has vastly different UIs and methods of matchmaking, so they had to rethink how they were going to present all of that.They were also able to take advantage of the DLSS GPU to up the graphical quality up to their standard, as they really wanted the experience to be the same within handheld mode and docked mode, even making sure the game runs at the same frame rate in both modes.

They are really proud of how the game works in handheld mode and believe it will be just as seamless as when players are on their TV.Another thing they are looking forward to with new players coming in from Switch 2 is the inclusion of crossplay. They suspect that players who are already enfranchised in the series will be able to guide the new players through the experience in a satisfying and fun way, so there be community support for the fresh faces coming into Relink.System wise, the way co-op matching works is that it creates a room for everyone to identify the goal or the quest that they’re all gonna go on together before you all move on.