Today Cygames published a sizable message from Granblue Fantasy director Tetsuya Fukuhara, and it included relevant information on Granblue Fantasy Relink.
Fukuhara-san mentions that he’s aware that fans may have worried during the past year, but development is going smoothly.
While the team is looking forward to the release, it’s still a bit ahead, and Fukuhara-san hopes that we can wait a while longer for more detailed reveals.
Since it would be confusing for many if promotion is done at the same time as Granblue Fantasy Versus, the company strategy will be to focus on promoting Versus and then its DLC for the time being.
The way information flows and the consumption of content are speeding up considerably. In the past games were announced a year or two before release, but recently they are revealed four to six months before launch with pre-orders already available.
Given that, Fukuhara-san believes that even Granblue Fantasy Versus was announced a bit too early.
Yet, the situation with Granblue Fantasy is a bit peculiar, so there may be no correct answer. The mobile game keeps on running with multiple info broadcasts a year and new scenarios releasing monthly. This kind of pace is not common in the industry.
In the case of Granblue Fantasy Versus, it was significant to announce it at Granblue Fantasy Fes 2018, as that’s the biggest event dedicated to the IP, but it created a sizable wait, so that’s still an issue.
Relink’s announcement was early, even if it was done at a company-wide presentation of new games called Cygames NEXT. That caused a long wait for the fans and Fukuhara-san doesn’t believe that’s good.
He goes on by mentioning that Cygames and in particular the Granblue Fantasy team have always been challengers. The original game started by subverting the common ideas of implementing rich animations and audio in a browser-based game. That attitude has not changed, so he hopes fans will look forward to what Relink will become.
The development team at Cygames Osaka has been expanding since last year, and it includes a number of well-known and veteran lead-level developers.
Lastly, Fukuhara-san mentions that he sometimes sees people saying that Cygames is having trouble filling the ranks of the team because they keep hiring. That’s not the case.
Quite simply, the manpower required increases exponentially as development goes on, so it’s normal to keep recruiting new staff even late in the development cycle, so fans shouldn’t worry about this.
Granblue Fantasy Relink has been announced only for PS4 and doesn’t yet have a release window.
If you want to learn more, you can also check out the latest reveal with gameplay and screenshots and read our interview with Fukuhara-san, who revealed quite a few interesting details a while ago.
Incidentally, the original Granblue Fantasy mobile game is available for iOS, Android, and PC via browsers. If you want to give it a try to prepare for the release of the console games, you can read my detailed guide on how to create an account, install the game, and play in English.
Recently we also saw the first look at the villains and DLC coming for the other Granblue Fantasy console game for PS4, Granblue Fantasy Versus.
About the author
