Want to see Raider King content first? Add us as a preferred source.
At 11:00 PM EST on February 6, 2026, players of Fate/Grand Order were greeted with the shock of their lives as the game released a gacha banner for Richard I from the anime Fate/Strange Fake. While gacha banners are far from an uncommon sight in this game, Richard’s appearance on this date has caused chaos within the fandom for one simple reason: He wasn’t supposed to release for another year.
North American fans of Fate/Grand Order have had a luxury that’s unavailable to most modern gacha fans: the ability to look at a schedule of upcoming characters and plan for who they wish to pull for. This is due to the game being exactly two years apart from its Japanese version at all times.
While other gachas like English Umamusume are also behind their Japanese counterparts, those games tend to run on an accelerated schedule that constantly throws new banners at the player as they desperately try to catch up with their original versions. This creates a hectic atmosphere, which Fate/Grand Order NA is able to avoid thanks to following its schedule at a normal, slower speed.
This future sight that Fate/Grand Order NA players have been granted was completely shattered today with the release of Richard I. As if the game were to continue following the Japanese schedule, he wouldn’t be releasing in NA until January 1, 2027. This marks a nearly 12-month difference between his scheduled release and his actual banner date.
The release of Richard I’s gacha banner during this month makes complete sense from a financial standpoint, as he is one of the main characters of the currently running Fate/Strange Fake anime. In fact, his original banner in Fate/Grand Order JP was also a tie-in to the release of said anime’s first episode (which was released a year before the series began to run monthly).
While this decision makes complete sense from a business perspective, the precedent this sets for the game has raised fears amongst gamers. While Fate/Grand Order NA has occasionally gotten Craft Essence, Mystic Codes, and even 4-Star tickets ahead of schedule before for similar anime tie-ins, this is the first time a full servant has been released early.
If the JP version were to, for example, release another Prisma Illya servant to tie-in to that manga’s upcoming finale, should FGO NA fans prepare for the normal scheduled release of that servant or expect them to appear in NA at any moment? Should all banners from this point on be treated with the same unpredictability?
Releasing Richard I in particular is expected to have major ramifications on the game’s North American schedule, as he was originally released for the special New Year’s 2025 banner in the Japanese version of Fate/Grand Order. The moment he released early in the NA version, fans began to question if the end of the New Year’s celebration would be changed or if Aniplex would simply act like Richard is releasing for the first time twice in a single year.
There are many mysteries and questions about how this early release will affect the future of Fate/Grand Order, and unfortunately, there are currently no answers to those questions. For now, fans can only sit back and observe as the game continues to release banners and hope that the precious schedule, which players have dedicated their savings to, isn’t broken again.
