Updated February 12, 2023 by Ernie

Let’s get to the point right away and get the party started!

The first anime adaptation of the Fate series is Fate/stay night, which was released in 2006. This anime adaptation follows the story of the Holy Grail War, a battle between seven mages known as Masters who summon legendary heroes known as Servants to fight for the Holy Grail, a powerful artifact that can grant the winner any wish.

Next, is Fate/zero which is a prequel series to Fate/stay night. It was released in 2011 and serves as a prequel to the events of Fate/stay night, detailing the Fourth Holy Grail War, a battle between seven mages who summon Servants to fight for the Holy Grail.

After Fate/zero, you can watch Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works which is an adaptation of the second route of the Fate/stay night visual novel. The series was released in 2014 and follows the story of the Fifth Holy Grail War, a battle between seven mages who summon Servants to fight for the Holy Grail.

The next series you can watch is Fate/Apocrypha which is an adaptation of the Fate/Apocrypha light novel series. The series was released in 2017. The story is set in a parallel world to the main Fate series and features a different cast of strong characters and Servants.

Fate/Extra: Last Encore is an anime adaptation of the Fate/Extra video game and it serves as a spin-off to the main Fate series. The series was released in 2018 and follows the story of a virtual Holy Grail War in a digital world.

Lastly, you can watch Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front – Babylonia which is an anime adaptation of the Fate/Grand Order mobile game. The series was released in 2019.

Table of Contents

Q1: What is the recommended watch order for the Fate anime series?

A1: The recommended watch order for the Fate anime series is as follows: Fate/Stay Night, Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, Fate/Zero, Fate Zero Season 2, Fate Stay Night: UBW (2014), Fate Grand Order, Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel, Fate/Extra Last Encore

Q2: Is it necessary to watch Fate/Stay Night before watching Fate/Zero?

A2: Yes, it is recommended to watch Fate/Stay Night before watching Fate/Zero, as it provides context and background for the events in Fate/Zero.

Q3: Can I watch Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works before watching Fate/Stay Night?

A3: Yes, you can watch Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works before watching Fate/Stay Night, but it is recommended to watch Fate/Stay Night first to better understand the characters and events in Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works.

Q4: Is Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel necessary to watch?

A4: While it is not strictly necessary to watch Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel to understand the overall story, it is considered the true ending to the Fate/Stay Night series and is highly recommended to watch.

Q5: Are there any spin-off anime in the Fate series that I should watch?

A5:There are several spin-off anime in the Fate series, such as Fate/Apocrypha, Fate/Extra: Last Encore, and Fate/Grand Order: First Order, but it is not necessary to watch them so you could understand the main Fate anime series.

The origin of the Fate Series goes back to 2004 when it made its debut as an R-18 PC visual novel by TYPE-MOON. The Fate/Stay Night took the gaming community by storm as soon as it came out. Now, the Fate/Stay Night has 3 routes that you can follow. The routes you follow purely depend upon your own choice. Each route builds on the one before it and each route offers a different kind of Shiro (The main character) and the people around him. The three routes for the Fate/Stay Night visual novel are as follows:

Now, each route has its own importance. According to the writer Nasu Kinoku, the Fate route asks us the question, the Unlimited Blade Works route presents us with an answer, and Heaven’s Feel route gives us the results based on the decision made. Let’s take a deeper look at every route for better understanding.

Saber is the main heroine and the love interest of Shiro in the route. Love and pure idealism are the themes of this route. Questions like “What is important to you?” and “What are your ideals?” are presented to Shiro in this route. 

The ending is somewhat bittersweet as Saber returns to her time after accepting her past and Shiro returns back to his peaceful everyday life.

But it is noticeable in the Realta Nua version that a “True Ending” indeed exists. However, it’s only achievable if you get all five endings in the game. 

This route is only accessible after completing the Fate scenario and completing this one would lead to the final route, Heaven’s Feel. Although it’s possible to enter this route without finishing the previous one, it will ultimately lead to a bad end.

 The love interest and main heroine for this one are Rin Tohsaka with her servant Archer being the servant deuteragonist. The main theme for this route is “Struggling with oneself as an ideal”. This route pays more attention to character development and themes than any of the other routes.  

This route answers the question posed in the previous one. The answer to the question asked is “What is important to me is my dream of becoming the hero that saves everyone at the end of the day, no matter how hard the circumstances may be“

There are two endings for this route, the Good Ending, and the True Ending.

The Good Ending shows us Saber, Rin, and Shiro living happily in the Emiya household with Rin and Saber planning to train Shiro.

The True Ending reveals Saber destroying the Holy Grail and disappearing and Rin heading off to the clock tower after graduating with Shiro as her apprentice. 

Heaven’s Feel is the third and last route that can be accessible after completing the Ultimate Blade Works one. The main heroine and Shiro’s love interest for this one is Sakura Matou. The rider is the servant Deuteragonist for this one. 

Being the most complex route, it’s the longest one out of the three. It covers a lot of important information that was not given to us in the previous routes. It also tells us the backstory of the Holy Grail War. Having the elements of “Horror” and “Suspense”, this route is called the “Black Side” of the storyline of Fate/Stay Night. The main theme for this one is “the friction between real and ideal.”

This route offers a “Normal end” and a “True End”.

The Normal End shows us the Epilogue after Shiro destroys Avenger and the Great Grail, sacrificing himself in the process. Sakura continues living in the Emiya residence and refuses to believe that Shiro is dead until the day she herself dies. 

In the True End, Illya stops Shiro before he could destroy the Great Grail and destroys it herself. She sacrifices herself for her little brother because she wants him to live. Shiro continues to live a peaceful life with Sakura and Rider. 

It all began with the release of the visual novel, Fate/Stay Night. After that, an anime under the name of Fate/Stay Night came out and has a number of prequels, sequels, movies, and spin-offs all under the name of “Fate”.

The Holy Grail War is the only thing that ties almost all the works in the Fate Series that starts with summoning heroic spirits from the past who fight against each other. Seven masters are chosen who then summon seven servants (Heroic Spirits). The seven classes of servants include Saber, Lancer, Rider, Archer, Assassin, Berserker, and Caster. 

The anime revolves around these wars and the one standing at the end gets the Great Holy Grail that could grant his wish. The anime is full of bloodshed and conflicts and the main theme is War.

The chronological order for the Fate/Series is as follows:

1 Fate/Zero Season 1 & 2 (2011-2012, Anime)

2 Fate/Stay Night (2006, Anime)

3 Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works (2014, 2015, Anime)

4 Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel (2016, Movie Trilogy)

5 Fate Grand Order – First Order (2016, Movie)

6 Fate/Apocrypha (2017, Anime)

7 Fate/Extra Last Encore (2018/Anime)

Fate/Zero is not the first part of the Fate Series as Fate/Stay Night was released five years before Fate/Zero. The events in Fate/Zero take place 10 years before the story of Fate/Stay Night. This part of the Fate Series is quite important because it leads toward character development and makes the viewers understand the further parts easily. Also, the emotional attachment to the characters will be quite strong if you watch Fate/Zero first.

This part, as we mentioned earlier, was released five years before Fate/Zero. The reason why it was released before the prequel was just to attach the viewers emotionally to the characters. Being one of the best parts of the whole Fate Series, Fate/Stay Night merges each timeline perfectly for a better understanding of every other part.

There’s also a movie under the name of Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works but the only thing that differentiates the movie and the anime is the watch time. However, you might feel that the movie lacks depth as it does not offer enough screen time with a lot of characters. 

If you want to just not waste time on the whole series, you can watch the movie instead. It will give you a different experience though.

Fate/Stay Night is the last part of the Fate Series and instead of getting an anime adaptation, it was made into a trilogy by its creators. The three movies have stunning visuals and a great story. If you’ve gone through the visual novel, you’d know how amazing it is. The three parts of the movie exceed each other in many ways!

Let’s talk about in what order the whole Fate/Series was released originally.

1. Fate/Stay Night (2006, Anime)

2. Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works (2010, Movie)

3. Fate/Zero (2011, Anime)

4. Fat/Zero Season. 2 (2012, Anime)

5. Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works (UFOTABLE version, 2014, anime)

6. Fate Grand Order – First Order (2016, Movie)

7. Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel (2016, Movie Trilogy)

8. Fate/Extra Last Encore (2018, Anime)

There are a number of movies that come under the umbrella of the Fate franchise. Below is the list of all the movies in the order they were released:

1 Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works (2010)

2 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA Oath of the Snow (2017)

3 Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feels: 1. Presage Flower (2017)

4 Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel: 2. Lost Butterfly

5 Fate/Grand Order- The Sacred Round Table Realm Camelot- Wandering; Agateram (2020)

6 Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel; 3. Spring Song (2020)

Aside from the main entries of the Fate Series, we have a bunch of Spin-offs and Specials that you can watch without worrying about the right order or even watching the main entries first. However, having watched the main entries before the spin-offs and specials will definitely give you a better experience.

1 Fate/Zero Remix

2 Fate/Zero Please! Einzbern Counseling room (2012)

3 Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works Prologue (2014)

4 Fate/Grand Order: First Order (2016)

5 Fate/Grand Order: Himuro’s Universe (2017)

6 Fate/Grand Order: Moonlight/Lost Room (2017)

7 Fate/Grand Order Learn With Manga! (2018)

8 Fate Grand Order- Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia Initium Iter (2019)

1 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA (2013)

2 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA Specials (2012)

3 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA 2wei! (2014)

4 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA 2wei! Specials (2014)

5 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA 2wei! Herz (2015)

6 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA 2wei! Herz specials (2015)

7 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA 3wei!! (2016)

8 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA 3wei!! specials (2016)

9 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA Movie: Oath of the Snow (2017)

10 Fate/Kaleid Liner PRISMA ILLYA Phantasm (2019)

Let’s just put the animation to the side and talk about the real stuff that got people hooked to it. Now, we all know how the Fate series includes a number of historical figures that are pretty popular and even the ones that we don’t know about. The best part is that the series makes the stories of these historical heroes so interesting that we’d actually like to learn about them from the anime instead of the textbooks. 

The historic heroes do not look like their real-world counterparts at all. Some of them are even gender-bended. But let’s get real here, everything in the world of anime is exaggerated and that’s what makes it all the more interesting. 

Let’s move on to the character design now. Every character has his/her own unique design that differentiates him/her from the others like the color of their hair or eyes and even outfits. It’s impressive how UFOTABLE managed to retain the uniqueness in each character’s design given that there are so many characters in the anime. 

Overall, the Fate Series is loved by fans all around the world because of its non-linear storyline. It’s not just popular just to be popular. It’s way more than that. It’s actually the mixing and mashing of a lot of things together that the Fate Series’ fans really appreciate.

You can watch Fate anime on various streaming platforms such as Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Netflix. It’s also available on the streaming service HiDive. Some streaming services may not have all the series or films, so you may need to check multiple platforms to find the specific Fate anime you’re looking for.

The length of the Fate anime series varies depending on which series you are watching. Here are the runtimes for a few of the most popular Fate anime.

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works (Seasons 1 & 2) Fate/Zero (Seasons 1 & 2) Fate/ApocryphaFate/Grand Order: First OrderFate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya (Season 1-5)In addition to the series, there are also several anime films within the Fate franchise, such as:

Fate/stay night: Heaven’s Feel (Movie series) – 3 moviesFate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works (Movie) – 1 movieFate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya: Oath Under Snow (Movie) – 1 movieSo the total runtime of the Fate anime franchise can vary from a few hours to around 100 hours depending on which series and movies you choose to watch.

Instead of being too stiff about the correct watching order, you need to relax and think about if you’re going to have fun while watching it or not. It doesn’t matter if you watch it in the actual release order or the chronological order. Experiment with both, figure out what suits you better, and HAVE FUN! Oh and don’t forget we also have the Fate Filler List which might come in handy too!