Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok Preview: A Deeper Look at the New Summon System
Granblue Fantasy: Relink introduced a brand new audience to the floating islands of Zegagrande and the adventuring Skyfarers of the Granblue Fantasy series back when it launched in 2024. Marking the first console RPG adventure for the primarily mobile gacha series, Relink let players pull off dazzling arrays of anime spectacle as they worked together either with their CPU-controlled party or with their friends to tackle quests and monsters. Now, we are mere weeks away from diving into the massive new expansion, Endless Ragnarok, and during SGF we had a chance to sit down and speak with the creative director, Tetsuya Fukuhara, and narrative director, Sanshiro Hidaka, but also get some hands-on time with the new expansion.
Some of the most jaw-dropping moments of Relink were when Granblu's heroine, Lyria, would summon her big ol' lizard pal, Bahamut, to let him do what dragons do best - rain fire/laser breath down on chumps. Lyria's ability to summon Bahamut is a pretty big deal in the lore of the series, so it always bummed me out a bit that these moments were exceptionally rare in Relink. Serving more like set pieces than an actual system, imagine my surprise and delight when I saw that Summons was going to be a fleshed-out and powerful new mechanic in Endless Ragnarok.
Restricted to the expansion content and new chaos difficulty, these powerful allies are tied to a new bar that will fill as you fight. Depending on the strength of the summon, each will require one, two, or three bars of this new resource to call out onto the field. Instead of a lifebar, they have a timer and will stay out until that runs out. This fact makes summons not only a great offensive option but also a perfect option to absorb those particularly nasty Overdrive attacks that bosses in Relink like to bust out, since summons are invincible.
Multiplayer is a big part of Granblue Fantasy: Relink, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that summons can be used when you play with your friends too, and aren’t just a single-player-only treat. When playing online, each player comes with their own set of four summons, but only a single summon can be fielded at any given time. That said, while you and your friends may not all be able to terrorize the field as giant creatures of destruction, you will be able to string a chain of summons together. Each subsequent summon one of your party members calls forth will have its cost reduced by one, down to a minimum of one. This will incentivize players to bring out cheaper single or double cost summons first so the most powerful options can be brought out for cheap!
On how summons came to be, Fukuhara-san shared that the system was a rather late addition in the expansion’s development and he wasn't sure how the team would respond to the idea. “So, from the beginning, there was the wish to have everyone you meet as an option, but he was expecting that there would be pushback and that along with the staff would say, ‘Oh, we can only do half, we won't be able to meet deadlines’, but instead the response was the vision as intended. So, it did require a lot of elbow grease, but everyone was having a lot of fun while they were doing it.”
Some summons have already been revealed in earlier trailers with Relink bosses, including Furycane and Nazarbonju, but the full number reaches past 100, with a mix of both imposing beasts, citizens, and some silly ones too. When asked for each of their favorite summons, both Fukuhara-san and Hidaka-san’s picks fell on that lighter side: “There's like a crab rain summon where you just rain crabs on the field. And depending on how many of the Wee Snippers you have collected, the amount of crabs that rain down will actually increase,” Fukuhara-san tells us. Hidaka-san continues: “I really like the cat summon, where if you do it well, a lot of cats come out, and the more cats you have, the more power you have, much like in real life,” he laughs.
If the summons aren’t selling Endless Ragnarok for you, the expansion offers far more than just that. Alongside a new story and quests to uncover, players can test their mettle with the new Chaos difficulty, experiment with the Master Traits for improved character specialization and customization, or dive into Conflux, an intriguing roguelike mode. Crossplay support and various quality-of-life improvements and UI updates fill out the rest of the package, costing existing Relink players $29.99. Even with the small glimpse we’ve had, Endless Ragnarok looks to be packed surprisingly full for an expansion.
I can’t think of a single game that hasn’t been made better by the ability to summon giant creatures to fight for you, and it looks like Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok continues to prove that theory. Thankfully, veteran and prospective Skyfarers won’t have long to wait as Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok launches on July 9 and comes either as an upgrade for owners of the base game or together with it for $59.99 on PlayStation 4/5, Steam, and now Nintendo Switch 2.
Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
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