Granblue Fantasy Versus is in a weird place: the game is eating well in terms of support from its developers and publishers, yet the community’s number one request- rollback netcode– remains unfulfilled.

The latest of these blessings comes with an announcement- that Granblue Fantasy Versus would be joining the PlayStation Plus lineup, which would bring a huge tide of new players to the game, a boost for any fighting game.

However, the comments below various posts sharing the announcement are all the same: a dejected looking emoji man, in an effort to pressure Cygames and Arc System Works to improve the game’s net play.

“It’s VERY hard to recommend this game to folks when nearly *every* fighting game on the market now has rollback/will be getting rollback, there’s no excuse”, writes Zero Striker.

The sad emoji man isn’t just on any one tweet- he is everywhere, following every Cygames tweet be it announcements or even just posts celebrating the game.

One user has described it as annoying- it’s almost impossible to see any kind of content about the game on Twitter anymore without the yellow face of condemned delay-based netcode rearing itself.

“As the person running @GBVS_Events I am literally imploring people to stop posting this shit because I search GBVS as a keyword to find and RT events that have it in their lineup and it is literally hampering my ability to even find anything because I can’t mute a goddamn image“, writes another user, Rowlet.

As of this writing, the Official Granblue Fantasy Versus Twitter account has not responded to renewed requests for rollback netcode.

Granblue Fantasy Versus has had a weird relationship with its online- the game launched literally right before the start of the pandemic, sporting delay-based netcode and axing many chances to show it off without the game crawling to a halt.

Following the first offline EVO since the pandemic, it also became the only game in the top 8 lineup to not have announced some kind of rollback-related announcement, either- prompting a lot of pushback from fans as other “impossible” titles like Dragon Ball FighterZ and Samurai Shodown all announced they would be sporting netcode.

Briefly, Rollback netcode is part of what’s allowed titles like MultiVersus, Guilty Gear Strive and Melty Blood Type Lumina retain users: by providing better online experiences, players can still play matches with minimal side effects, given a stable enough connection.

Granblue Fantasy: Versus

Developer: Arc System Works

Release Date: 2020-02-06

PlayStation 4, Steam

Granblue Fantasy has soared into the hearts of millions since its release as a browser game for smartphones in 2014, and will celebrate its sixth birthday in March 2020. Featuring Cygames' high-quality art, captivating sound design, and an ever-expanding game system, Granblue Fantasy has continued to charm its fans throughout the years. Now Cygames has partnered with Arc System Works, known for such popular fighting franchises as GUILTY GEAR and BlazBlue, to bring Granblue Fantasy to the world of fighting games, complete with top-notch game design and one-of-a-kind 3D graphics. Granblue Fantasy: Versus will be released for the PlayStation®4 on February 6, 2020.