Do you have to install Fate/Grand Order before you can read its pull rates?

The rates live behind the install button

The answer to the question in the headline is yes. To read the rarity rates you have to install the game. The official Japanese FAQ directs players to the summon details link at the lower left of the summon screen for drop rates[1], and the pickup announcement posted on 2 September closes with the same instruction[2]. No official web page carries the table. Every figure and date below was checked against store listings and official pages on 3 September 2026.

The stores do label the mechanic, just never the number. The US App Store advisory list includes Contains Loot Boxes[3], US Google Play attaches In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)[4], and the Korean Google Play rating line reads 15 and over with sexual content and in-game purchases including probability items[5]. Three storefronts agree that randomness is involved. None of the three says how much.

One piece of the arithmetic is public. A pickup summon raises the appearance rate of the featured Servants and Craft Essences, and the supply ratio of each rarity tier itself does not move, which the FAQ states directly[1]. A banner does not make 5-stars more common. It changes which 5-star you get when one arrives.

Three cards from a hand, eleven years of text behind them

Combat is a card selection. Servants are heroic spirits summoned out of history and myth, and a party is built from them. Each turn the player picks three of the command cards dealt into hand, which triggers effects, and a filled special gauge sets off that Servant’s Noble Phantasm animation. The Korean Google Play listing describes the loop in exactly those terms[5].

Volume is the point of the game. The same listing puts the main scenario above one million characters of text and counts the per-Servant interludes separately[5]. The Japanese Google Play listing puts its own build above five million characters[6]. The official Japanese site fills in its genre field with FateRPG and its price field with free to start, some in-app purchases[7].

The credits stayed with the original creators. The Japanese staff page lists LASENGLE as developer and operator, Kinoko Nasu as general director and main scenario writer, and Takashi Takeuchi on character design, under a TYPE-MOON and FGO PROJECT copyright[8]. The English site carries a second line for Aniplex of America[9].

Five apps share the name, and one of them is running the campaign

The reason this game is in conversation right now belongs to the Japanese build. Its official announcement opened a 35 million download campaign running from 2 September at 18:00 to 16 September at 12:59 JST[10]. Every master receives a commemorative ticket that exchanges for one 4-star Servant chosen from a list of 130, limited-run Servants through 2025 included, and a three-day login bonus pays 10 Saint Quartz a day from 4:00 on 3 September, 30 in total[10]. Six commemorative pickup summons opened alongside it with 12 new limited Servants and 8 limited Craft Essences[2].

The free Servant comes with a deadline attached. A Servant exchanged with the ticket enters on provisional terms, and permanent enrollment requires level 50 and bond level 3 by 30 September at 23:59. The announcement states that a Servant who misses the mark departs[10]. Ticket distribution closes on 9 September at 12:59 and the exchange window closes on 11 September at 12:59, so the day you receive it, the day you spend it and the day you finish raising it are three different days.

None of that reaches the app most English speakers install. The English build is App Store ID 1183802626 under Aniplex Inc., released 25 June 2017, currently version 2.92.0 from 1 September 2026, rated 4.45 across 15,039 ratings, and listed with English as its only language[11]. The Japanese build is a different ID under the same seller, released 12 August 2015, currently 2.138.3 from 28 August, rated 4.02 across 158,049 ratings, in Japanese only[12]. Korean, traditional Chinese and simplified Chinese builds exist as three more separate apps[13][14][15].

Story progress diverges as well. The Japanese build gates new events behind clearing The Beginning of After Time, a Part 2 milestone[10], while the English site fronts an Ordeal Call III trailer and a ninth anniversary video[9]. The Korean listing still opens with the launch of Part 2, Cosmos in the Lostbelt[5]. The same title leaves a different amount of story ahead of you depending on which storefront you opened.

Saint Quartz in six sizes, and a counter that starts over

Installing costs nothing. Spending runs through one paid currency, Saint Quartz. The US App Store in-app purchase list shows six tiers: 1 for $0.99, 5 for $3.99, 18 for $11.99, 41 for $23.99, 76 for $39.99 and 167 for $79.99[3]. US Google Play summarizes the same range as $0.99 to $79.99 per item[4], and Korean Google Play states 1,230 to 93,200 won per item[5].

Two kinds of the same crystal sit in the same counter. The official FAQ separates paid from free Saint Quartz, notes that some services accept the paid kind only, spends the free kind first, and states that summon drop rates do not differ between them[16]. One paid crystal also buys a once-a-day single pull on limited pickups, and that allowance resets at 4:00 each morning[17].

A checkout exists outside the app stores. The same FAQ describes crystals bought at Aniplex Online arriving as paid acquisition (other), against paid acquisition (in-app) for Google Play and App Store purchases[16]. Money spent on that path leaves no record in either store’s purchase history.

Refunds are closed. FAQ 20 states that digital items cannot be returned and that cancellations or refunds requested by the customer after a completed purchase are not accepted[18]. A first purchase also triggers an age confirmation screen, and the registered age information resets when the month turns over[19].

The guarantee is real and the counter is the catch. FAQ 1457, published 4 December 2023 and updated 4 August 2024, states that if 329 summons on a limited pickup produce no featured 5-star Servant, the 330th delivers one[20]. An eleven-pull guarantees one 4-star-or-better card, Craft Essences included, plus one 3-star-or-better Servant[2]. But when several pickups run at once, each summon page counts separately, and on banners whose contents rotate the count resets at the moment the contents change[2]. This campaign runs six pickups, which means six independent counters[2]. Story summons and Friend Point summons sit outside the guarantee entirely[20].

Everything in the last two paragraphs was confirmed on the Japanese service. Whether the English and Korean operators run the same numbers could not be confirmed today. The English FAQ carries no category for Saint Quartz purchases or summoning[21], and the odds link found in the Korean official site’s own code returned nothing.

Ten hours in, and the split between two kinds of player

The prologue is the first gate. The September campaign asks new masters to clear Singularity F Fuyuki up to section 3, progress 1 by 9 September at 12:59, and the login bonus goes to accounts that have cleared the prologue[10]. The first few hours teach the card loop and push through that prologue. After it, reading takes over. A million characters of text, or five million on the Japanese build, is a quantity measured in thumb taps[5][6].

Check the hardware before the download. The official system requirements are iOS 15 or later with iPhone 12 or newer recommended, Android 7.0 or later, 4GB of RAM recommended and 3GB required, with a note that the game will not run below 3GB[7][9]. The US App Store lists the download itself at roughly 143MB with iOS 15.0 as the minimum[11].

The game suits a reader. It suits someone who wants a long serialized story on a phone, who enjoys watching an illustrated roster fill in, and who can set a monthly ceiling without help from the interface. Store ratings track that split across builds: 4.02 in Japan, 4.45 in English, 3.80 in Korea and 2.96 on the traditional Chinese build[12][11][13][14].

It does not suit a player who came for mechanical feel. Picking three cards is the same physical action it was eleven years ago. It does not suit anyone who decides on spending by reading the rate table first, because the table sits behind the install. And a collector who thinks of the roster as an asset should read FAQ 20 before the first purchase[18].

Starting today, the sequence is: pick which regional build you are joining, install that one and only that one, clear the prologue, then open summon details on the summon screen and read the rarity numbers yourself before any money moves. On the Japanese build, write down 9 September 12:59, 11 September 12:59 and 30 September 23:59 first, because missing any one of the three costs you the Servant the ticket gave you[10].

What remains unanswered is whether the ceiling travels. Nothing published in English states that the 330-pull guarantee and the eleven-pull floor apply to the English service on the same terms, and the operator’s FAQ does not address summoning at all. Asking Aniplex of America support directly is currently the only route to that answer.

Sources

[1] Aniplex. Fate/Grand Order official FAQ 27, pickup summons. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[2] Aniplex. 35 Million DL Commemoration Pickup Summon announcement. Posted 2 September 2026, accessed 3 September 2026.

[3] Apple. Fate/Grand Order (English) on the US App Store. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[4] Google. Fate/Grand Order on Google Play, US listing. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[5] Google. Fate/Grand Order on Google Play, Korean listing. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[6] Google. Fate/Grand Order on Google Play, Japanese listing. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[7] Aniplex. Fate/Grand Order official site, how to play. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[8] Aniplex. Fate/Grand Order official staff and cast credits. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[9] Aniplex of America. Fate/Grand Order official USA website. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[10] Aniplex. 35 Million DL Breakthrough Campaign announcement. Posted 2 September 2026, accessed 3 September 2026.

[11] Apple. iTunes lookup API, app ID 1183802626 (country=us). Accessed 3 September 2026.

[12] Apple. iTunes lookup API, app ID 1015521325 (country=jp). Accessed 3 September 2026.

[13] Apple. iTunes lookup API, app ID 1241893973 (country=kr). Accessed 3 September 2026.

[14] Apple. iTunes lookup API, app ID 1225867328 (country=tw). Accessed 3 September 2026.

[15] Apple. iTunes lookup API, app ID 1108397779 (country=cn). Accessed 3 September 2026.

[16] Aniplex. Fate/Grand Order official FAQ 21, paid and free Saint Quartz. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[17] Aniplex. Fate/Grand Order official FAQ 1186, the once-daily single pull for one paid Saint Quartz. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[18] Aniplex. Fate/Grand Order official FAQ 20, returning purchased Saint Quartz. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[19] Aniplex. Fate/Grand Order official FAQ 18, purchase restrictions. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[20] Aniplex. Fate/Grand Order official FAQ 1457, the guaranteed summon. Accessed 3 September 2026.

[21] Aniplex of America. Fate/Grand Order USA FAQ index. Accessed 3 September 2026.