How are you suppose to watch the fate/holy grail war in order?

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Main story:

* Fate/stay night (2006) **(DISCLAIMER: primarily follows the Fate Route, but incorporates some elements from the other two. I like it enough to recommend it, so I will. But even aside from that, it's still part 1 of the main story so it should be seen anyway. If you don't want to watch it, the other alternative is to experience the Fate Route as it is in the Visual Novel, whether by playing it yourself or watching a walkthrough.)**
* Unlimited Blade Works (2014)
* Heaven's Feel Trilogy

Prequel:

* Fate/Zero **(DISCLAIMER: if you just want to watch one great show and then dip from the franchise, it's a perfectly fine standalone (not gonna gatekeep). However, don't start with it if you plan to commit)**

Spinoffs:

* Carnival Phantasm **(needs some knowledge from Tsukihime as well, but there's no anime of that 😎)**
* Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya
* Fate/Apocrypha
* Today's Menu for the Emiya Family **(jokingly referred to as "Fate/Cooking")**
* Fate/Extra: Last Encore
* Lord El-Melloi II Case Files: Rail Zeppelin Grace Note **(needs Fate/Zero for context)**
* Fate/Grand Order:
- First Order **(Prologue)**
- Divine Realm of the Round Table - Camelot **(6th Singularity)**
- Absolute Demonic Front - Babylonia **(7th Singularity)**
- The Grand Temple of Time - Solomon **(Final Singularity & End of Part 1)**
- Moonlight/Lostroom **(prelude/setup for Part 2)**
- Fate/Grand Carnival **(the Grand Order version of Carnival Phantasm)**
* Fate/strange Fake

There's no watch order for most of Fate, most of it is standalone AU spinoffs. It's mostly just the three FSN routes (alt timelines if the same war) and Fate/Zero (FSN's prequel) that have any order and that's flexible- generally recommended to either watch Unlimited Blade Works, Heavens Feel, then Zero, or Zero, UBW, then HF. Most people skip FSN 2006 entirely cuz it's not very good. Is recommended to do this grouping before the spinoffs.


The Grand Order timeline is the only other part with a watch order.

Basically, the core series is Fate/stay night, which was a visual novel with three routes to be read in order. Fate, Unlimited Blade Works, and Heaven's Feel. The most ideal entry point is reading the VN to completion in all routes.

The best you can do anime-wise is the 2006 Fate/stay night anime which covers basically the Fate route with some additions from the UBW route and hints of the HF route and then to try Ufotable's adaptations of UBW (TV, note this has an episode 0) and HF (movie trilogy). Deen also has a film version of UBW which tbh after the slow pacing of the TV series and VN, I actually enjoyed quite a bit for its fast pacing.

Fate/Zero is another good core series and covers the war 10 years prior and connected to F/SN. It's a prequel and F/SN to a certain degree will spoil this and this will spoil F/SN to a certain degree. There's no getting around it but this one stands on its own pretty well regardless.

The rest are basically spinoffs.

Lord El-Melloi II-sei no Jikenbo is relevant as a sequel to Fate/Zero focusing on one of the returning characters. It's not about the Holy Grail War, but an underpowered but talented teacher taking on cases.

Strange Fake is a spinoff but features characters who appear in El-Melloi in a new war in the US.

Apocrypha is another major spinoff, and features double the usual number of servants.

Fate/Grand Order is a bit more canon but it's based on a mobile title (so quality of the story is ???). You'd watch this one in a certain order.

Fate/kaleid liner Prisma☆Illya is a different vibe but it's a solid spinoff series focusing on a de-aged version of a F/SN character who never got her own route. It's like a mahou shoujo type series where these cards basically replace the holy war and then things get more serious.

I have seen fate zero,ubw and heaven feels movies so can I watch strange fake ?

I can understand people being confused and want it to know. But this question is answered almost every day. Even when FSF is moths ago and nothing related with Fate will be aired. So little PSA: Use the search bar. Please. Im sure you can choose a question with less than 3 days old.

Just make sure you watch the [Whispers Of Dawn](https://myanimelist.net/anime/53127) prelude to Strange Fake before starting the series. It explains the entire setup for Strange Fake, and I would have been utterly lost on the first episode if I hadn't seen the Episode 0 entry first.

most simplied way without reading all the essays others are giving you:

Fate Stay Night UBW (2014) + prologue + 3 movies

Fate Zero (prequel to the above)

Fate Strange Fake (current)

Can skip Fate Zero if you want to just get into the whole series quick. You can even skip the 3 movies to UBW as they're altnerative endings. But the movies are pretty good and worth the watch.

Technically there is no proper starting point for watching, because the 2006 adaptation of it is not that great story wise. You can start with watching Fate/Zero or the Unlimited Blade Works anime, but no matter what you start with you'll either be confused or spoil yourself to something you shouldn't know yet, possibly both.

The most 'correct' way to get into Fate is and always has been to read the Fate/Stay Night visual novel, if you're up for that level of investment.

it's all down to preference. different components have different writers and are different forms of media.

i never watched the 2006 anime, i watched fate/zero in 2011 when it came out then played the original VN with the tohsaka prologue and collected all of the bad/dead ends for shirou. IMO best possible experience.

i rewatched fate/zero recently and the dialogue in it is so much better than everything else IMO. i dropped the heavens feel movies. trying to slowly watch fate/apocrypha now, it's not as good as fate/zero but it's also not egregriously bad.

a lot of people will tell you to watch fate/zero later even though it's a prologue. and some people will call the fate/zero author, who wrote madoka magica and psycho pass, a "butcher."

People love to make it out as more complicated than it is, the simplest way to think about it is that there are a bunch of spin offs or alternate universes in this franchise, and you could mostly jump into any of them if you really want to, since they all end up explaining core concepts early on anyways.

Yes there are nods to other in franchise things but I wouldn't say they're essential either, they can be thought of as an added bonus for those that are really into it. Even something like Zero which is a prequel can still be watched and enjoyed as a standalone thing.

If you really want a starting point just as a grounding for where everything else spawned you can pick one of the Stay Night adaptions, or Zero. For everything else you can pick the one that looks the most interesting to you and if you like it you can continue from there with others.

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Thanks for all the comments and my apologies for not replying to everyone, just know I appreciate everyone who answered!

It will certainly help!