Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok Interview

At Summer Game Fest Play Days, Cygames was present for a developer panel, demo, and Q&A segment about Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok. RPGamer was able to sit down to interview the Creative Director of the Granblue Fantasy series, Tetsuya Fukuhara, and the Director of Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok, Sanshiro Hidaka, about the upcoming expansion. Both of their answers were given in Japanese and communicated through a translator. Endless Ragnarok will release on July 9, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.

Jordan McClain (RPGamer): What was the main goal the team wanted to achieve when developing Endless Ragnarok?

Tetsuya Fukuhara: It’s a little abstract, but the kind of main inspiration for the development of Endless Ragnarok is we heard a lot of voices wanting more content from Relink. And it was a lot of different requests, whether that meant more characters, more quests, more story events, and we wanted to respond to every single request that there was while also getting the new content out as early as possible.

RPGamer: What emotions do you most want players to experience from Endless Ragnarok‘s story?

TF: Where the team has put in the most effort, and it was the same as in Relink, there are a lot of, near the climax of a lot of the stories, there are the big boss fights. And during those scenes, actually, we want the players to feel that they’re having a lot of fun – that the gameplay is really satisfying. So, we’re expecting a lot of enjoyment to be derived from the game. Especially when it comes to the battle scenes, we put in a lot of really dramatic effects, and we also put in a lot of huge animations. We wanted those overall visuals to be striking, so we’d like players to really pay attention to that.

RPGamer: Which gameplay feature required the most attention and refinement before it felt right?

TF: The combat system took a lot of effort. Adding both the summons and the Master Traits, and the Master Traits in particular, they aren’t being added just to the new characters, they’re being added to the entire cast, and we needed to make sure that everyone synergized very well. So, until the very last minute, we were still putting finishing touches on that system.

RPGamer: What was the biggest balancing challenge when expanding Relink’s endgame systems?

Sanshiro Hidaka: Because Endless Ragnarok itself is meant to be played after the events of Relink, and the endgame of Relink itself, as you probably know, was already difficult enough, we couldn’t simply just make the content harder this time around. So, with the new difficulty tiers, instead of just making the battles more difficult, we wanted to add depth in different ways. So, for example, the battle might demand that you observe the boss’s moves more carefully to be able to counteract them, or it might require you to figure out what build is best for that boss. And through those different aspects, we’ve basically wanted to challenge the players more, but not through just more tricky mechanics or anything like that.

RPGamer: How difficult is it to balance encounters for both solo and cooperative play?

TF: So, the kind of single-player and multiplayer content is fundamentally similar to Relink, but it wasn’t too difficult to develop for Endless Ragnarok. But something that we did put a lot of care and thought into was that, for some of the more difficult bosses with the more difficult mechanics, previously, if you were doing the quest with AI, like with the AI companions, they weren’t able to properly respond to these bosses. So, this time around, we added a lot of adjustments in order to make that easier for people who are playing single.

RPGamer: The adjustments were good!

TF & SH: [laughs]

RPGamer: What design goal led to the creation of the Conflux, and was there any worry that it would feel too different from the core gameplay?

TF: First off, the core gameplay of Relink is the quests, whether you’re playing single-player or multiplayer. And then, originally, the Conflux kind of came in as a single-player sort of side content for adding a new feel to the game. Generally speaking, most quests are quite short and then, through them, you can kind of get materials for upgrading your weapons.  The Conflux is a little bit more of an involved stage. Each play takes about 15 to 20 minutes, but you do get upgrade materials all at once. So, the team is also thinking of the Conflux as preparation for then moving into the multiplayer content.

RPGamer: Did the team receive any feedback from players that influenced the development of this expansion or changed the team’s perspective on design?

Jasmine Li (Translator): And then, by feedback, do you mean after the development of Relink?

RPGamer: After the development of Relink, yeah. So, between Relink and Endless Ragnarok.

SH: We did receive a lot of feedback, and it’s hard to point out any one direction it went in. It kind of went in all aspects in all directions of the game. We have actually taken in a lot. The volume of the feedback that we’ve taken into consideration is quite high. After reflecting on that feedback, the team has actually changed over 700 points in the game. And, as to the details of what exactly we’ve changed, we will explain in a later patch note.

RPGamer: Is there anything you would like to say to players looking forward to Endless Ragnarok?

SH: All of our players are the reason that we’ve decided to develop Endless Ragnarok. And it’s all of those people who are saying that they didn’t want Relink to end, or that they would wait however long they needed for more content, that we were able to even decide to make this game in the first place. I feel the utmost appreciation for all of these players that have waited these two entire years without even knowing that Endless Ragnarok was in development. So, thank you very much.

I’m so happy with the amount of support that I’ve received with the game, and it really instilled me with the drive to get this content out as soon as possible, so it was great motivation. I’m very grateful for that. We were able to first announce Endless Ragnarok in February of this year, and all of the responses that we saw people who were like, “Oh, we were really waiting for this!” Or like, “Welcome back to my most beloved fantasy game of all time!” When I saw all those comments, I really felt that all of the effort put in these two years was all worth it.

From February to right now, we’ve gotten even more voices, and we’ve been listening to all of those voices as we have been continuing development for the game. And even though we’ve already announced a lot of content this time around, there is actually still more to expect. So, we are really excited to see how players react to all of the things we have in store.

TF: From the first time that we’ve announced Relink to the development and the release, it took a long time. But we have received the utmost passion and utmost enthusiasm from our fanbase during that time. So, we are extremely grateful for that. And we believe that we have made the game even better this time around, and with the addition of Switch 2 as an available platform, as well as crossplay, we’re hoping that the game reaches even more players this time around.

But of course, Granblue Fantasy, as an entire franchise, as well as Relink, is a fairly new franchise. So, we would really appreciate it if all of our players could recommend this to their friends and gather people together for especially the co-op mode. And if we continue to see that people enjoy the content of Endless Ragnarok, it could lead to future plans, just like it led to this one.

RPGamer would like to extend thanks to Tetsuya Fukuhara, Sanshiro Hidaka, and Cygames for granting an interview and taking the time to answer our questions. We would also like to extend thanks to Jasmine Li for her excellent translation, and to Scott Fry, Grady Penna, and ONE PR Studio for coordinating and facilitating the interview. Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok will release on July 9, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.