Fate Grand Order (FGO) incompatible with Android 9 Pie, Aniplex confirms

Update: Aniplex has officially confirmed that FGO isn’t compatible with Android Pie currently. Here’s exactly what they say:

We will release an update to the application once we have determined that it will perform correctly on Android 9.0. We ask that users not update to Android 9.0 until that time.

Original story follows:

Sony owned Aniplex’s mobile RPG Fate Grand Order has over the time gained immense popularity. As per reports, it was the top grossing mobile game on both Google Play and App Store back in January this year. Plus, it also helped Aniplex double its revenue in last fiscal year.

So clearly, there is a very large number of FGO fans out there, and it’s reasonable to say that a lot of them would be playing the game on their Android device. If you are among that lot, we have an important news for you.

Avoid upgrading your device to Google’s latest Android 9 Pie mobile operation system (which has just started rolling out). Reason being, a lot of those who did update their phones in excitement later realized the game isn’t compatible with Android Pie.

Here are a couple of user comments describing the situation:

As per usual with every major Android update, don’t update your phone until the game app is updated or you risk losing out on AP and the login bonus. Updated my Pixel 2 to Android 9 already, as usual the game spits out an error code and asking me to email DW.

Welp I lucked out from own stupidity, I guess I will wait for the update 🙁

Games getting incompatible with major new OS updates isn’t exactly new. History suggests it usually takes some time (few weeks to a couple of months), and the compatibility arrives. But if you go by the following comment from an FGO user, that seems less likely in this case.

Before anyone starts asking the inevitable question of “when will FGO support Android 9?”, here’s some food for thought:

– FGO is built on top of the Unity game engine, and so is dependent on Unity updates for OS compatibility

– The latest FGO version (v1.19.0) is built off of Unity 5.3.4p6 (you can inspect the first few bytes of the asset files extracted from the Android APK)

– The latest Unity patch release is 5.6.5p4, so FGO is already 3 major revisions behind

– The latest Unity AndroidSdkVersions documentation only goes up to API 27. Android 9.0 is API 28. Meaning there’s currently no support at all for the OS even in the latest public build

– There is no mention of Android P (pre-release name) nor Android 9.0 in the current Unity roadmap

For FGO to support Android 9, first Unity must support Android 9. And even after Unity supports Android 9, DelightWorks needs to update their tools and do a bunch of validation testing before finally giving it the green light. This could take anywhere between a few months to over a year.

If you have mistakenly upgraded to Android 9.0, I highly recommend you downgrade back to Android 8.1, cause otherwise you’ll be waiting a long time for FGO.

So there you go. Currently, you can’t enjoy FGO on Google’s latest OS. What’s good is that the Android 9 update is currently only rolling out to Pixel phones and the Essential Phone (on which it has already brought an unexpected surprise for those who weren’t the part of beta program).

It will be interesting to see how Sony (Aniplex) and Delightworks take care of the situation. Rest assured, we’ll let you know as and when there’s a news-worthy development on this matter. Meanwhile, there are similar reports from users of some other games as well:

Featured image: Bloomberg.

Note: We have also compiled a (continuously updated) list of issues/problems/bugs reported with (or triggered by) Android 9 Pie ever since it got live. Take a look to catch hold of all Pie-related issues.

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