Q&A with Granblue Fantasy Director Tetsuya Fukuhara!

We stopped by Cygames’ office and had the chance to ask Granblue Fantasy Director, Tetsuya Fukuhara, a few questions regarding Granblue Fantasy! With him was Dai Omori, Localization Coordinator, on hand to translate.

Granblue Fantasy players would know about the Optimus series of summons receiving their fourth star uncaps. For the uninitiated, weapons and summons can be “uncapped” up to three stars, with some also having four, or five. They’re basically the “limit break” system, providing more stats and additional effects where applicable.

Optimus summons typically feature weapons that are available from the premium draw/gacha. Omega – also referred to as Magna within the playerbase – covers the free to play weapons. There’s a context in regards to balancing F2P to big spending players, Fukuhara says. The Omega summons received their fourth star uncaps the previous year, so it raised the power levels for those players, so it became the Optimus’ series turn for their uncaps. It’s a see-saw, with updates rolled out periodically to ensure no single type will be constantly stronger than the other, to maintain the balance.

With summer having ended, and Halloween units expected soon, one could keep wondering how the team decides on limited units. There’s multiple aspects:-

• A character’s appearance within the story or event,
• Do they have a good reason to be appearing as a limited unit?
• The type and gender of the character

Fukuhara does acknowledge the tendency to have more female character units, and he doesn’t want it to be entirely female-dominated either, hence adding in new versions of male characters, for example. It applies to the “Grand” series as well – in Granblue, there are both seasonal limiteds and more regularly appearing limiteds, referred to as “Grand” series. For Grands, considerations include the character:-

• To have made an appearance in the main story
• To fit new raid battles
• To fill a special role or niche within the game

With a game as big as Granblue Fantasy, as it approaches its sixth year of service, it has an expansive fanbase. Surely something from them has surprised the team? As a matter of fact, there is at least one, as Fukuhara brings up Belial. Belial is from Granblue Fantasy‘s fourth anniversary event, What Makes the Sky Blue II: Paradise Lost. His basic concept was to be “a very annoying character”, not meant to be beloved due to his being the villain of the story.

There was a huge response to the event itself. Typical events run for 9 days, but Paradise Lost was extended to a month in length, due to how much the fans loved it. He tells us about how sudden changes within a mobile game’s schedule can be quite hectic, but the enormity of fan reactions convinced the team it was worthwhile. They certainly hadn’t expected such a response at the point of the event’s release.

Granblue Fantasy has expanded into consoles, with projects like Relink and Versus. Fukuhara does not disclose any new information about Relink, but does mention the team at Cygames Osaka has been rapidly building up in speed, manpower and talent. Specific game announcements will be made at the end of the year, at Granblue Fantasy Fes. Should more IPs under the Granblue Fantasy name be announced, we can expect them at the year-end event too.

Regarding further expansion of the franchise, the original browser Granblue Fantasy will always remain as the core of the IP, and they definitely want to continue updating it. The browser game is plenty massive already, and Fukuhara doesn’t want people to be bored of what he calls the “fundamentals” of the franchise. He mentions devoted fans who’ve been playing for years, and wants them to continue being active players.

Versus and Relink will be expanding the possibilities for the IP. Versus, the fighting game, and Relink, as the action RPG, have the potential to bring new experiences to players of the mobile game. Those console players could start the mobile game from Versus or Relink, or mobile players could start getting into console games; it’s about the interaction of the media to enhance the fanbase.

Bringing in new fans is one thing, and Granblue Fantasy‘s UI could be a lot to process to begin with. The UI always has space for improvement, Fukuhara informs us. Changes have been gradually made, as massive changes can confuse the playerbase. The current iteration of the UI has seen plenty of changes from the beginning, too. As it is, it’s not realistic for overhauls to happen overnight. For now, they will focus on the merits of how the game is displayed, while reducing the demerits.

With the variety of events in the game, there’s bound to be some more grind heavy ones, that favours people who can play more regularly than those who can’t. The balance is determined through datamining, as the team has access to specific data as to how much any given player plays. Unite and Fight, for example, is a more competitive event where guilds – or crews, as they are known in Granblue Fantasy – go head to head to qualify into tiers, rack up more points in 1 to 1 matches, with individual rankings also bearing rewards. The events are modified accordingly to user data.

There are also scenario – typically end of month story events – and redux events, which are more accessible to newer players. Proving Grounds is an event type geared towards mid- to high-level players. This is another way of balance, by providing events that every player level can participate in.

Players are able to redeem various items from the shops in Granblue Fantasy, from regular treasure items to weapons. New raid weapons take a while to be introduced, since they are new, and having them overly accessible is thought to be not good for the overall gaming experience. The current new tier weapons will be added to the shop once there is a newer series of weapons. Immediate weapon availability for certain weapons is due to the team setting a cap to the number of these you can own at any time. These are typically incredibly powerful weapons, with some having only a limit of one per player, to maintain the game balance in general.

Collaborations with Granblue Fantasy can be quite fun affairs, with the variety of series that the game ties-in with. Fukuhara says these collaborations are usually planned at least 12 months in advance, due to the amount of work that goes into them. He can’t tell us what collabs will be coming up next, but there are ideas currently in the works for upcoming events. They’ll continue on with things like themed cafes and shops for the future too. As for permanent cafes or similar, he says it’s possible, but no details will be given at this time.

Regarding moving any of these themed events outside of Japan, Fukuhara points out the CyStore USA Pop-up Tour has been accepted well. Cygames’ properties goods get sold at various venues, and the reception for the USA tour has encouraged them to plan more for the future. He says there’s also much fan reaction from Asian countries and it’s being considered, without anything concrete available for now. Please come to Malaysia sometime!

Granblue Fantasy is not officially available as an app outside of Japan, but you can simply play it on your browser. Fukuhara encourages people to give it a shot, since you can start it without much complication. He does acknowledge there’s plenty of worldwide players accessing the game, something he calls a privilege, and is grateful for the support. To start, Versus and Relink will be available to fans outside of Japan in an official capacity, and in a nod to Asian fans, depending on the reactions, more could be coming soon. Fukuhara once again thanks players for their continued support, and for fans to stay tuned for future content.

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