Granblue Fantasy Relink: Endless Ragnarok Hands-On Preview – Not Quite The End Times For Cygames

2024’s Granblue Fantasy Relink (GBR) was an underrated action RPG that was born out of possible development hell (it was a PlatinumGames-developed title before Cygames took over), had tons of characters to mix and match a four-player party with, featured cool boss fights and story action setpieces with exclusive badasses like edgelord demon-dragon guy Id and weapon-summoning midget mage Maglielle, and lovely aesthetics. It was missing some things here and there, but nothing that will chastise fans of anime, fantasy, action RPGs, and all of the above.

Cygames’ expansion for the game, subtitled Endless Ragnarok, doubles down on story content, post-game challenges, and more characters than you could shake a stick at. Based on the gameplay we’ve experienced and the sit-down interview we conducted at Summer Game Fest 2026, it’s looking to be a banger of a follow-up.

To The Skies Yet Again

GBR Endless Ragnarok is just more of what you love, based on the presentation vibes and post-gameplay back-and-forth media session led by directors Tetsuya Fukuhara and Sanshiro Hidaka. For one, the new characters are a hoot to play as. In the high-level skirmishes at the Summer Game Fest 2026 demo booths, I assembled a team of baddies consisting of Fraux, Fediel, Maglielle, and Gallanza, as they’re playable for the first time in the Relink universe.

Fraux has a red Devil she works together with, making her a two-stance character. Much like her browser game counterpart, one stance is focused on Area-of-Effect damage (giant demon foot to the ground, multiple fists popping up “Ora ora” style) while the other is more single-target focused. I was mostly playing as her in the less-than-1-hour session I was given, but I definitely felt the power of her moves and flashy attacks. I switched to her single-target stance more as she has moves that chase opponents down when they’re running away, then just used Demon Foot stomps for crowd control while letting Maglielle and Gallanza draw aggro with their plethora of moves. The catch is that she has two different gauges for her stances; if she spents all of them she’s effectively stanceless and vulnerable to anything coming at her.

Fediel is the Dragon of Darkness, much like how Galleon is an Earth Dragon and Wilnas is a Fire Dragon. She’s an all-rounder character, with ranged and melee moves that showcase her dragon god-like abilities but in “human” form. She also has a unique warp move that lets her get close to enemies but at the cost of not-so-quick attacks that leave her immobile if you’re not careful and just spam attacks. Thankfully, she also has a counter to keep enemy attacks off of her when needed.

Former boss character Maglielle can summon floating weapons to attack, but also generate a barrier that moves with her, defending against heavy attacks and acting as support at times. She can dish out the pain, but with Fraux and Fediel at front and centre, the protection she doles out doesn’t hurt in the slightest.

The key takeaway with the two and the Relink exclusive characters Maglielle and Gallanza is that they’re meant for high-level use, with skills that aren’t meant to be spammable and should be carefully implemented against the game’s tougher challenges. You can still use your base roster like Gran, Katalina, and the airship crew, but the expansion adds a ton more flavour with its new cast of characters ripe for action RPGing and co-opting.

Speaking of expansion, I can’t forget about the Summons. Yes, you can bring in giant golems, holy creatures, and monstrosities to temporarily fight by your side for a few minutes during a fight. Once you build up Primal meter, you can summon whichever big boy/girl you have on your hotkey and then have them go to town against the boss. They can’t die and are invincible, so you can have them power through enemy attacks at the right intervals. I cannot tell you how cathartic and fun it is to suddenly plop down Furycane and Pyet-A in the middle of a skirmish, finally fighting at your side and wreaking havoc against the one-eyed flying ice-summoning devil boss that’s giving me a hard time. There are a ton of big beasties and mechas you can equip as Summons and unleash as Primal Bursts (ie: the better versions of ultimate attacks once you have your whole party Bursting), but so far Furycane and Pyet-A stood out in our minds.

And if you’re worried about having your new Endless Ragnarok characters underlevelled? No worries: the roguelite mode Conflux is here to put your newbie characters through the ringer. In this new mode, you select a party of four and go through a series of fights and trials, all of it lasting about 20 minutes or less not unlike a roguelite arcade gaming experience. Whether you win or fail, your characters gain rewards and experience. The better you perform, the more you receive and carry over. The Conflux will feature a ton of maps and stages from the base game and the expansion, with unique modifiers to spice things up and make your fights interesting, or brutally tough. This is still a boss rush-style game, so don’t expect the later Conflux levels to take it easy on you.

Flux? No, Conflux

Giant summons, new characters, and a lot more story content that’s about 20 to 30 hours long with boss fights are what an end-level expansion for one of 2024’s best action RPGs require to stay relevant with a 2-year old game engine. That’s what Cygames intends to do; why blow too much money making a sequel when you have readily-available and already lovely-looking assets to work with since 2024?

Directors Fukuhara and Hidaka stressed that rather than do a Granblue Fantasy Relink part 2 with new assets and a new game engine, they opt to just make an expansion that’s twice as large but still use the base game as a starting point. For a company arguably making too much money with horse girl racing gacha games, they are taking a smart and conservative route with the expansion, which I feel other game companies should at least take in the long run.

In any case, I can’t wait to play through the literal endgame(s) of this upcoming Granblue Fantasy action game follow-up, if only because I’m curious to see how far I can take my team of baddies in the final game. Granblue Fantasy Relink: Endless Ragnarok will be out on July 9, 2026 for PC and consoles.