Project Awakening Development Will Now “Really Accelerate”, Says Studio

Project Awakening – first unveiled all the way back in 2016 – has resumed development. Japanese studio Cygames announced through an interview with CGWorld that production on the game is going to accelerate. Developer Tomino Kimihiro said that staff members who worked on Granblue Fantasy: Relink have also joined the Project Awakening team.

“We’re now at a stage where production will really accelerate,” they said when asked about the status of Project Awakening (as caught by WCCFTech). “The development team consists of staff who have been involved from the beginning, as well as staff who joined after finishing the development of ‘Relink.’ It’s a major project with Tokyo and Osaka working together as one.”

Kimihiro went on to confirm that Cygames has decided to move development of Project Awakening over from its in-house Cyllista engine to Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. This decision was made to help the studio achieve its goals for “hyper-photorealism” with the title. When it comes to gameplay, the developer confirmed that Project Awakening will have a slower gameplay tempo than we saw in Granblue Fantasy: Relink. This also means that attacks will carry weight and momentum, making the gameplay more tactical than Cygames’ recent outing.

“Since this game is set in a photorealistic human world, the tempo of the action itself is slower compared to ‘Relink’,” explained Kimihiro. “We have slowed it down to a tempo where players can enjoy making decisions such as ‘dodging’ or ‘blocking’ when they see an enemy’s attack, and while ensuring responsiveness to the controls, we have created a weighty motion that gives a sense of ‘lingering effect’ to the movement.”

“Furthermore, in order to express a sense of realism, we are designing it in a direction that increases the variety of motions. For example, even if you repeatedly press a button to perform the same combo, the behavior will change if there is a difference in terrain. As for the enemies, when they are knocked down, they do not just fall with a fixed motion, but will try to attack the player while lying down, aiming for behavior that conveys the ‘sense of life’ of the monsters.”

The last time Cygames spoke about Project Awakening was back in April 2024, following the release of Granblue Fantasy: Relink. At the time, the studio said that work on Project Awakening was continuing. However, no further details about the project were revealed at the time. The last real look we got at the game was with a gameplay trailer from back in 2018.

The trailer clocked in at over a minute and a half in length, and Cygames’ emphasis on “hyper photorealism” could be seen even then. While details like the core gameplay loop were lacking, we did get to see how a medieval knight could take on a gigantic reptilian beast, with just about every bit of movement carrying a sense of momentum.

More recently, Cygames released the Endless Ragnarok expansion for Granblue Fantasy: Relink, which brought in quite a bit of new content, including a solo-focused roguelite mode and an entirely new difficulty tier for quests.