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“Live” service games aren’t all about new events and content, as the latest Fate/Grand Order patch shows. The planned improvements to the game were previewed during the Chaldea Park live stream event in Osaka.
The biggest addition in the Fate/Grand Order patch is a way for players to access older, limited-time events. Previously, if a player happened to miss, say, the summer event for that year, they’d have to wait for the event to be rerun the following year. If they missed it again or just happened to join Fate/Grand Order late, then tough luck. All the goodies, including any limited free Servants, would be forfeit.
No more. The Fate/Grand Order patch will add “Main Interludes.” Main Interludes are, essentially, compilations of the story scenes and main quests from limited events. Leonardo da Vinci’s shop will unlock them in exchange for mana prisms. Most importantly, if an event included a free Servant, the Main Event version will award both the Servant and the event-exclusive items needed to ascension. That makes it convenient even for players who happened to play an event and acquire its free Servant, but missed out on their ascension items.
The first Main Interlude will be “Merry Christmas in the Underworld,” the Christmas event from 2017 (2019 for the English version). The free Servant for that event was Attila the San(ta), a 4-Star Archer-class version of the 5-Star Saber Servant Altera (who debuted in 2016 Fate/Extella: The Umbral Star). As the Fate/Grand Order patch coincides with the game’s celebration of 19 million total downloads, access to the Main Interlude will be free at first.
Other improvements will improve visuals that hover over characters afflicted with negative status effects, such as burn, poison, and curse. Story sections will be added to the “Materials” archive immediately after reading instead of after quest completion.
No details were given as to when the Fate/Grand Order patch will filter down to the international versions of the game. That said, though the English version lags behind the Japanese one by almost two years, Aniplex has accelerated the deployment of many so-called “Quality of Life” improvements like these. English-speaking players already benefit from features like being able to back out of an attack or see which Servants have an event-related bonus effect at a glance. The additions could be coming sooner rather than later.
The Fate/Grand Order patch will go live on Wednesday, February 26, 2020 in Japan. The game itself is available on Android and Apple iOS devices.
