So I haven’t actually watched all of Fate but I just wanted to write out my experience with the franchise and everything I know both from personal experience and pop culture osmosis.  To begin, the things I have watched/played:

• Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works Prologue
• Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works
• Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works 2nd Season
• Fate/Zero
• Fate/Zero 2nd Season
• Fate/Apocrypha
• Fate/Extra: Last Encore
• Fate/Extra: Last Encore – Illustrias Tendousetsu
• Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note
• Lord El-Melloi II Sei no Jikenbo: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note – Hakamori to Neko to Majutsushi
• Fate Grand Order

The image at the top is a version of the actual order the events in Fate happen but the actual watch order is pretty different.  There’s a much more complicated version but the simple version is start with Fate Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works or Fate Zero then watch whatever else you want or an extra step would be to watch the three Heaven’s Feel.  I started the series when there was only one Heaven’s Feel movie out so I skipped that and went into whatever seemed interesting.  The reason for watching these three first is that Fate started out as a visual novel that had three possible routes, Unlimited Blade Works, Fate, and Heaven’s Feel.

Side by Side of Ufotable and Studio Deen’s adaptation

Fate Stay Night isn’t in the standard watch order because it was adapted by Studio Deen instead of Ufotable that did the other three and it’s considered very sub par version of Ufotable’s adaptation.  Fate Zero is included because it’s a direct prequel to both Fate Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works and Fate Apocrypha.  Now to get into the free for all stuff.  Fate Apocrypha comes after Fate Zero and is an alternate timeline to the whole Fate Stay Night Series.  I’m now realizing I need to describe the plot of Fate.

All the masters from Fate Zero

Basically, Fate generally follows the various events called Holy Grail Wars where Masters, accomplished magicians, summon Servants, heroic spirits from history, battle each other until the last pair of Servant and Master claim the Holy Grail, said to be able to grant both Servant and Master any wish.  In the main Fate series as well as Fate Zero there seven pairs of servants and masters.  Apocrypha changes that where there are two team red and black of 7 pairs of servants and masters.

Some of the servants from Fate/Apocrypha

Lord El-Melloi’s case files is after Fate Zero and follows one of the masters solving mysteries involving magic.  Fate Last Encore was a bit confusing to me and is mainly super far in the future where everyone is on the moon but the moon is kind of sentient or a computer or whatever.  Mainly don’t worry  about it, it was pretty average and nothing seems to rely on it too much.  That finishes out my knowledge on all the shows I’ve watched.  Now moving onto Fate Grand Order or Fate GO.  Simply, its a free to play turn based combat game that’s presented in visual novel format.  It’s also a gacha game where you can get draws for a chance to get certain characters.  I played every day for a solid couple months and still had no idea what was going on, mainly I was just saving my resources for pulls for rare characters and items but each of those had pretty detailed descriptions that on top of the timeline was fully canon to the Fate universe.  Fate GO adds new seasonal content to so it really doesn’t end.  Overall Fate GO is a whole mess and I’m not going to cover the absolute money vacuum it can be if you get

Heroic spirit Iskander from the Fate Grand Order game

addicted to puling rare characters.

Basically I’ve only scratched the surface of the Fate universe and the more you get into it the more confusing it can get and weirder it seems to outsiders.  I genuinely do like the Fate series as a whole and would eventually like to watch more of it but for now dumping all my thoughts on what I’ve seen is going to be it.

Sooo yeah,

Grace