Two years ago, Granblue Fantasy: Relink released to an enthusiastic reception that caught even its own developers off guard. Now, Cygames is doubling down with Endless Ragnarok, a full-scale expansion that promises to reshape how players experience the game from top to bottom. We recently had the opportunity to have an exclusive interview with Tetsuya Fukuhara, Creative Director overseeing Granblue Fantasy’s console spin-offs, and Sanshiro Hidaka, the director who stepped up from narrative lead on Relink to helm Endless Ragnarok entirely, to talk about what went into building this expansion, the decisions behind its new characters and bosses, and where the game could go from here.

Born from Fan Reaction

The story of Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok essentially begins with the response to the base game. Hidaka described the expansion as something that grew directly out of player enthusiasm after launch. “When we released Relink, we received all the explosive enthusiasm. We knew we would need to answer that, and that’s what created Endless Ragnarok,” he said. Development on the expansion actually started while the team was still working on post-launch updates for Relink, meaning the two efforts were running in parallel for a stretch of time.

The name itself carries a deliberate nod to longtime fans. The final battle of the base game had a soundtrack titled “End of Ragnarok,” which became a fan favorite after release. Fukuhara explained his thinking.

“When I was thinking of the title, it was like, ‘But is it really the End of Ragnarok?’ So I thought that by remixing the title a little bit, that would make people wonder, ‘Oh, how did the game change?’ and make them excited to play it.”

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The team had roughly two years to build the expansion, a far cry from the eight years it took to develop Relink itself. Hidaka admitted the pressure of that timeline was felt throughout the process. “We had to balance speed and quality to make sure that we could get the most satisfying product out as quickly as possible,” he said. He also opened up about the uncertainty that came with working on something of this scale under that kind of time constraint.

“Between the two years where we started development and then February of this year where we made the announcement, I had my doubts the whole time. But then when we originally made the announcement on Nintendo Direct, fans immediately started pouring in with comments of support, comments of love, and reading all the X posts. It was really heartening to see that feedback.”

Six New Characters and the Logic Behind the Lineup

Endless Ragnarok brings six new playable characters to the roster: Gallanza, Maglielle, Beatrix, Eustace, Fraux, and Fediel. The selection was driven by a mix of fan demand, story connections, and a deliberate push for variety across the Granblue universe.

Gallanza and Maglielle were added partly in response to direct fan requests, but also because the team personally wanted to see them fight alongside the character Id. Beatrix and Eustace, on the other hand, complete a group within the game’s story called the Society. With Zeta and Vaseraga already in Relink, Fukuhara noted that fans of the series would naturally expect the full group of four to eventually come together.

“Even in our other titles, if you have Zeta or Vaseraga, our fans probably also expect that the four of them will be the main characters in the game and for the group to be complete.”

Fraux and Fediel fill a different role. Neither character appears in Granblue Fantasy Versus, so adding them expands representation across the broader IP. Fukuhara described them as characters the team felt would be “a really fun surprise” for fans, given how unique they are within the Granblue world.

When asked why popular Zodiac characters were not included, Fukuhara was candid about the constraints the team was working within. “We knew Gallanza and Maglielle were set. We knew that we wanted to fill out the Society with Beatrix and Eustace. We knew our Evoker representation would be Fraux, and we knew our Six Dragon representation would be Fediel.” With all six slots already spoken for, there simply was not room. He also pointed out a thematic mismatch.

“The Zodiac characters have a heavy Japanese theming, and there’s not really many traditional Japanese elements in Relink. So their inclusion also dramatically just doesn’t fit as well as some of the other options.”

Fukuhara was also clear that popularity alone does not drive these decisions. “It’s fine to just include characters just because they’re popular, but we don’t want to sacrifice diversity over popularity.”

Why Beelzebub Made the Cut Over Belial

Fans of the original Granblue Fantasy mobile game will recognize Lucilius, Beelzebub, and Belial as three of its most beloved characters. Lucilius served as the capstone boss of the base game, and Endless Ragnarok will feature Beelzebub. Belial, despite being widely popular, is absent from both.

Fukuhara explained that the character choices were not arbitrary. “When you think about which is stronger between them, it sort of made sense to go with Lucilius” for the base game. For Endless Ragnarok, Beelzebub was chosen because his fighting style represents something the game has not yet seen. “Beelzebub fights with raw strength as opposed to intelligence. So he brings the type of boss fight that we hadn’t seen in Relink yet,” Fukuhara said. He also noted that Lucilius, being a highly intelligent character, has gameplay mechanics that reflect his personality, and that Belial, who shares a similarly cerebral nature, might end up feeling too similar in practice.

Belial’s absence comes down to his character. “Belial is not really the type to fight head-on. So he probably wouldn’t even appear like ‘Hi, I’m a boss!’ type of fight in Relink. He’s a very tricky little man,” Fukuhara noted. Hidaka added another layer to the reasoning.

“When Belial appears in Granblue games, he tends to be accompanied with a lot of story, because he tends to require a plot to express the type of character he is. So if we introduced Belial, that would also require a lot of narrative buildup.”

There is also a diversity consideration at play. Fukuhara pointed out that including all three would mean the super boss lineup is dominated entirely by angelic characters. “We wanted to have more diversity by representing other types of bosses like The World.”

Reworking the Endgame Grind

One of the more common criticisms of Relink’s endgame was that players ended up funneled into repeating just two quests, Proto Bahamut and Lucilius, over and over again. The team is addressing this directly. A key change is that Proto Bahamut will now drop tradeable items instead of random weapon drops, letting players work toward the specific gear they want rather than relying on luck. “One of the reasons why players had to repeat Proto Bahamut a lot is because the drop system for the weapons was completely random. Now, Proto Bahamut will drop items that you can use to trade for the weapon that you’re looking for. So that should prevent people from having to spam the same quest over and over,” Fukuhara said.

The endgame structure itself is also being expanded. Hidaka noted that by the time players finish the Endless Ragnarok story, they will have access to multiple final battles rather than just one or two.

“For Relink, there was basically only Lucilius and Zero for players to play at the very endgame of content. But for Endless Ragnarok, you’ve completed the story and all other quests before these final battles, and there are now multiple battles to take on.”

The sigil system, which many players found frustrating due to how long it could take to get the traits they wanted, has also been reworked. Combining sigils and hunting for specific trait combinations will be less of a chore, and existing sigils will be easier to obtain alongside new ones with new traits and powers. Hidaka framed the overall goal clearly.

“We’ve taken away the burden of collecting these materials, and we’re putting the focus on which weapon should I equip, which sigil loadout should I go with, do I build myself for defense, do I build myself for offense, which master traits am I focusing on to pick a playstyle, and which characters am I bringing into the fight. That’s where we want the player’s focus to be, not on just simply collecting these items.”

Master Traits and a New Approach to Character Builds

One of the most substantial new systems coming with Endless Ragnarok is Master Traits, a build customization layer that unlocks after players reach a new progression tier called Master Level. Hidaka traced the inspiration for the system directly to his time playing Diablo 3 as the Demon Hunter. While leveling up, he stumbled onto a build centered around the sentry ability that completely changed how he approached the game.

“I was just leveling up, having fun, until I sort of stumbled upon this build where I was using the sentry and there’s actually a lot of options to build around your sentry. So you could actually put all of the responsibility on them to kill all the enemies, and so you build your character to stay alive, sort of dodging or defending or whatever. And I thought, ‘Wow, that really changed the way I was approaching this game.'”

That feeling of unexpected discovery is what the team wanted to recreate.

The system has three trees, each with three levels of depth. Players earn Master Points as they level up and can spend them freely across any of the trees, and they can reallocate those points at any time. “You can turn on any tree, on and off whenever you want, you can bounce between styles as you like,” Hidaka explained. Players can fully invest in one tree to define a specific playstyle, then shift everything to another tree if they want to try something different, with leftover points available for additional fine-tuning.

“Once you find the play style that you want in a really deep way, you can use those extra points to customize your play style even further.”

As an example, Hidaka pointed to Ferry, a character who normally fights alongside her pets. Endless Ragnarok will introduce a Master Traits build that makes calling and recalling pets the central mechanic, fundamentally changing how Ferry plays. Higher level traits in each tree are more restrictive and specific, reinforcing a defined approach, but nothing is locked in permanently. The first level of traits has relatively minor effects, but levels two and three progressively deepen the playstyle in ways that Hidaka says are best understood by getting hands-on with the system.

Boss Design, The World, and Raising the Ceiling

The philosophy behind boss encounters has shifted for Endless Ragnarok. In the base game, especially with Lucilius, the difficulty came largely from reflex-based challenges. The new content leans more toward memory, strategy, and reading visual cues. “For Relink, especially with Lucilius, he really tests your reflexes, so that’s sort of where the challenge comes from. However, in the new difficulty tier, there’s new mechanics that revolve more around memory, strategy, or seeing visual information and reacting to that information, rather than just pure, raw instinct,” Fukuhara explained. He also noted that making every boss as punishing as Lucilius would narrow the audience considerably. “If we added bosses that were as difficult as Lucilius, that really limits the number of players who can play that content.”

That said, raw content harder than Lucilius does exist in the expansion, made possible partly because Master Traits allow characters to reach new power levels. “If you unlock all of those Master Traits, you could clear Lucilius relatively painlessly. We’ve prepared some appropriate challenges after the credits roll for Endless Ragnarok,” Fukuhara said.

The World was chosen as one of the expansion’s featured bosses for two reasons. He is a popular figure from the mobile game with visually interesting design themes, and he shares a story connection with the new character Fraux. “Because we had Fraux, we knew we needed to include The World,” Fukuhara explained. The expansion also features completely original bosses, including a giant crab in the hands-on demo and a group of new enemies called the Ragnalia, ensuring that the roster of encounters is not entirely drawn from the mobile game’s existing roster.

New Systems for New and Returning Players

For players jumping in fresh, Granblue Fantasy: Relink – Endless Ragnarok does not include a direct skip to the expansion’s content. However, the base game content has been rebalanced, and a new solo mode called the Conflux is designed to help players catch up by providing materials that speed up weapon and character development. “If you really want to get to the Endless Ragnarok content as a completely fresh player, you can just play The Conflux multiple times. That’s the fastest way to catch up,” Fukuhara said.

A new Backup Character system lets players borrow a fully developed character from another player’s roster and bring them into their own party. “You can actually borrow an original Relink player’s super strong character to help you more easily clear content, and make progress with your own characters,” Hidaka explained. This means a brand new player could lean on a veteran’s maxed-out character to push through earlier content with considerably less friction.

For veterans, all of the progression elements from the base game have been expanded. Master Level and Master Traits push character power beyond the original level 100 cap, and a new weapon upgrade system called Transcendence applies to all weapons, unlocking traits that cannot be found on sigils at all. “The weapon becomes an even more important part of that, since there are also some slots that you can use to customize which traits the weapons have to further increase the variety of builds,” Hidaka noted. He also confirmed that even players who reach the very top of the Master Level system will still have progression available to them in the later stages of the game.

The summon system is also making its debut in Endless Ragnarok. Summons become available as quest rewards once the expansion content is unlocked and are designed to function as powerful, temporary game-changers in battle. Hidaka compared them to bombs in a shooting game

“Once you use them, they have a powerful effect, which changes things drastically.”

In co-op, each of the four players brings one summon into battle, and all four share a single summon gauge. Using a cheaper summon reduces the cost of teammates’ summons, encouraging coordination rather than competition over resources.