Fate is a popular series that has been going on since 2006 in the anime world. It has spawned games such as Fate Extella: The Umbral Star and even had a successful mobile game Fate Grand Order. The series is notoriously hard for new fans to get into due to its 20 plus anime series. This confusion only got worse when Fate Stay Night And Unlimited Blade Works were released in 2014.
Both Night and Unlimited Blade Works have very similar stories and often get confused by fans as Unlimited being a reboot of Night. This couldn't be further from the truth as Unlimited is a totally different story and a key to unlocking the whole story of the visual novel the anime series are based on.
The Fate Stay Night Basics And Anime Confusion
Fate Stay Night didn't start out as an anime; it was a visual novel first. Fate Stay Night was originally released in 2004 for Windows. Shortly afterward, in 2005, a manga of Night started publishing in Shonen Ace magazine. The visual novel itself has several different routes for players to go through; The Fate Route or Saber route is only one of these routes but is considered by many fans to be the most popular and is the most well-known.
The popular Night anime adapted the Fate route, while the less-known manga tried to pull all three routes together. In order to properly adapt the visual novel, there had to be more than one anime series, which led to many first-time Fate fans being understandably confused. All of the routes are already available in the original 2004 game, but due to the anime's popularity, many new fans don't realize that a visual novel is the source material.
Fate Route VS. Unlimted Blade Works Route
In the visual novel, you will follow the story of the anime, but with choices that will help you achieve different endings. Every route still deals with the Holy Grail War and Shirou Emiya but is vastly different in story content. You will first need to play the Fate route (Saber) to unlock the Unlimited Blade Works route (Rin). Getting on the Unlimited Bladeworks Route simply requires you to stop Saber from attacking Archer on the 3rd day.
The Unlimited Blade Works route lets Rin be the romantic lead. The major fights that happen in Unlimited Bloodworks are different, and even the antagonist is changed. Archer also plays a much heavier role in Unlimited Blade Works, including being the new antagonist for the route. The story is often considered to be much darker than the Fate route.
It's important to note that you will need to start the story over again and play to get the new choice to stop Saber. This shouldn't be a deterrent, though, as Unlimited Blade Works has several different endings from Fate and is a huge piece of the Fate Stay Night puzzle. The same is true for the third route, Heaven's Feel, which focuses on Sakura Matou, and is the longest route in the game and will only appear after you have done both the Night and Unlimited Blade Works routes.