If you’re at all familiar with recent developments at Cygames, then you might have noticed it has started branching out into other areas over the past two years, such as establishing divisions for anime production (CygamesPictures), music production and artist management (Cymusic), as well as sponsoring a soccer team and founding an eSports team. And while nothing much can be said about its sudden interest in soccer (yet), we now have some idea as to why the developer has taken such an interest in eSports, going so far as to sponsor Evo 2018: one of its most prominent games, Granblue Fantasy, is getting a fighting game.
Announced at Granblue Fantasy Fes 2018, the game, titled Granblue Fantasy Versus, is being developed by Arc System Works, who seems to have become the go-to developer for whenever a company wants its IP to become adapted into a cohesive fighter.
As for the game itself, it will take many popular characters from the source material and pit them against one another in 2D combat, with Cygames noting the game will be designed to appeal to both Granblue Fantasy fans and fighting game fans, alike.
Thus far, the only confirmed characters are Gran, Katalina, Charlotta, Lancelot and Ferry, with the logo suggesting several more are on the way. Charlotta, Lancelot and Ferry are particularly noteworthy here, because these three were supposed to be in what has since become Granblue Fantasy: ReLink at one point, but were mysteriously absent in the most recent announcement. There’s no word on whether they were actually cut the game, but their inclusion in Versus would make perfect sense if they were. In the chance that turns out to be the case, then we can likely expect the presence of Percival and Metera who were also once slated to appear in ReLink.
Beyond that, there’s only speculation and plenty of expectations for who should make the cut. It would be weird for a Granblue Fantasy fighting game to not include Ghandagoza, Aliza, Feather or Randall, especially after they were featured in the “A Thousand Reasons” event from earlier this year, and you can’t consider this a game with fan-favorites if Narmaya, Vira, Yuisis or Cucouroux weren’t included in some capacity.
As for me? Put in Beatrix, Clarisse or Cagliostro and I’m set.
Granblue Fantasy Versus is planned for release on the PlayStation 4 in 2019.
Check out the announcement trailer below:
