Honkai: Star Rail Fate/UBW Part 2 Is Live: The Free 5-Star Is a Choice, and Collab Pity Is Separate

Part 2 of the Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] collab has been live since July 24, 2026, 12:00 PM server time, in Phase 1 of Version 4.4. Rin Tohsaka and Gilgamesh are both pullable now. Version 4.4 itself runs July 14 to August 25, 2026.

Two rules decide what a player does this week. The free 5-star attached to Part 2 is a choice, not a grant: Archer or Gilgamesh, one copy, claimed on login. And the four Fate banners run their own 90-pull pity counter that the Character Event Warp never feeds, in either direction.

Archer or Gilgamesh: Pick the Half of the Roster You Already Own

The free unit is claimed by logging in during Part 2 and selecting one of the two. The window opened July 24, 2026 and closes at the end of Version 4.6.

The pairing is the whole decision. Gilgamesh and Saber trigger a joint follow-up after eight combined strikes, a Lightning and Wind barrage. Rin Tohsaka and Archer trigger theirs when the team drops to 3 Skill Points or fewer, a 375% AoE hit that hands back 4 Skill Points. Both pairings sit at T3: two independent kit readouts each, no official post. At least one English-language write-up has the pairings swapped and puts Gilgamesh with Rin. Two sources against one, so the table above is what we run.

Anyone who played in July 2025 has already claimed Archer, since he was Part 1's free unit through the end of Version 3.6. For those accounts the selector is not a choice at all: take Gilgamesh, because Archer is a duplicate and the Eidolon it would feed is not worth a free 5-star slot.

A returning account with neither unit follows the banner it intends to pull. Pulling Rin means taking Archer free. Owning Saber means taking Gilgamesh free.

Collab Pity Is a Second Counter Starting From Zero

All four Fate banners feed one shared guarantee counter. It is 90 pulls for a 5-star and 10 pulls for a 4-star, and it does not communicate with the Character Event Warp. Progress made on Himeko, Nova over the last fortnight is worth nothing here, and pulls spent on Rin do not shorten the road to the next standard limited unit either.

There are no featured 4-star rate-ups on collab banners at all. Every 4-star pulled here comes off the standard pool.

Forcing a specific collab 5-star costs roughly 180 pulls worst case, about 28,800 Stellar Jade, on aggregator arithmetic. That figure is T3 and assumes losing the first 50/50.

One payment softens it. Spending 200 Star Rail Special Passes between July 24 and August 25, 2026 grants a free signature Light Cone of the player's choice. That deadline sits with the end of Version 4.4, not with the end of the collab, which makes it the first thing on the calendar to expire.

Every Fate Banner, With Dates

Light Cone banners run alongside: A Thankless Coronation for Saber, The Hell Where Ideals Burn for Archer, Flickering Stars for Rin, and I Am As You Behold for Gilgamesh on a banner called Age of Gods Golden Gate.

Saber and Archer opened on July 11, 2025, in Version 3.4. That is the correction worth making loudly, because the version number gets misreported constantly: 3.4 was the launch patch, and 3.6 was merely the end of the window HoYoverse originally guaranteed. The banners did not close at 3.6. They are still open on August 1, 2026, thirteen months and roughly nine patches after they opened, which is the only evidence that makes "permanent" mean anything.

It is not unbounded, though. Part 2 content and the free-character claim are both dated to the end of Version 4.6. Version 4.5 opens August 25, 2026 and its second phase runs to October 6, so 4.6 begins after that and has no published end. Treat "permanent" as "no announced end date, and a fourteen-month track record", not as a promise.

The Trailer, and What Imagenae Pays

"A Long Awaited Reunion" went up on the official Honkai: Star Rail channel in the days before launch. Coverage disagrees on the date, July 22 by one outlet and July 23 by another, and nobody has reconciled it.

The trailer is a crossover scene, not a Fate showreel. The Japanese cast lists Kana Ueda as Rin Tohsaka, Tomokazu Seki as Gilgamesh, Ayako Kawasumi as Saber, Junichi Suwabe as Archer and Nobutoshi Canna as Lancer, alongside Junya Enoki and Yui Ishikawa as the male and female Trailblazer and Chiwa Saito as Castorice. Rin also carries Shuo Xiaotu in Chinese and Kim Bo-min in Korean. There is no English dub for the Fate characters: Japanese, Chinese and Korean voice-over only.

Kinoko Nasu, who wrote the original Fate/stay night, supervises the collab story.

The Part 2 story is a Trailblaze Continuance in seven chapters: The Opening Battle, Muscle Magic, West Wind Blossom, Long Fated Night, Unlimited Bladework, Morning Star and After Daybreak. It pays 420 Stellar Jade across those chapters, split 110, 100, 110, 50, 30, 10 and 10, plus 430,000 Credits, Traveler's Guides, Refined Aether and Lost Crystals. Unlocking it needs Trailblaze Level 34 and the mission "So Laughed the Masses", or a skip through Finality's Vision.

The English name is unsettled and worth flagging before searching for a guide. The in-game string reads "Imagenae: Holy Grail War". One outlet prints "Phantasmagoric Holy Grail War", and the Korean-sourced preview translates it as "Phantom Grail War". They are the same event.

A separate combat event, "Fate/Star Rail Night", runs alongside it. The Korean readout describes it as a roguelike deck-builder. The English name for that one is also not settled, so it stays T2 at best.

Rin Tohsaka: Erudition, Quantum

Rin is a 5-star Erudition Quantum unit built around Skill Point generation rather than Skill Point consumption. Her Talent, "Gem Magecraft: Freeform Tohsaka Style", accumulates Gem Energy whenever an ally spends Skill Points, and pays it back as a 125% CRIT DMG buff. Her Ultimate, "An Gal Ta Ki Gal Se", deals 750% ATK to one target plus 250% splash, applies 25% Vulnerability for 3 turns and hands the team 1 Skill Point. Her Skill, "Jeweled Sword Zelretch", fires up to 33 randomised jewel bombs in its enhanced form. Basic attack is "Bajiquan", Technique is "Gem Toss".

Her signature Light Cone, Flickering Stars, carries 18% CRIT Rate and 36% Skill DMG, with a "Radiant Crown" passive that ignores DEF when allies burn 4 or more Skill Points in a turn.

Every number in this section comes from aggregator kit readouts rather than an official post, which puts it at T3 until the in-game descriptions are checked.

Gilgamesh: Destruction, Lightning

Gilgamesh is a 5-star Destruction Lightning unit. His Skill, "Gate of Babylon", deals AoE Lightning damage with a DEF-ignore component. His Ultimate, "Enuma Elish", is an AoE with bouncing hits. His Talent, "Amuse Me to the Fullest", builds a resource called Interest from ally Ultimates, which makes him a payoff unit in teams that ult often rather than a self-contained carry. Basic attack is "Halfhearted Blow", Technique is "Enkidu".

His signature Light Cone is I Am As You Behold, on the Age of Gods Golden Gate banner.

Same caveat as Rin: T3, aggregator-sourced, unverified against the live client.

The Rest of Version 4.4

Himeko, Nova, a 5-star Erudition Fire unit, runs on Ad Astra Nova for the whole version, July 14 to August 25. Phase 1 reruns Sparxie, Dan Heng, Permansor Terrae and Evernight through August 5. Phase 2 opens August 5 with Cerydra, Anaxa and Aventurine and closes August 25.

Launch on July 24 was 12:00 PM local server time, which is 04:00 UTC on Asia, 11:00 UTC on Europe and 17:00 UTC on America. The collab is playable on PS5, PC through HoYoPlay and the Epic Games Store, Android and iOS.

Korean players have an offline tie-in. The DEEP immersive exhibition in Jamsil runs July 17 to August 31, 2026.

Three Dates That Will Close This Out

August 25, 2026 ends Version 4.4 and with it the 200-pull window for the free signature Light Cone. It is the shortest fuse on this page and the only deadline that penalises waiting.

The end of Version 4.6 ends the Archer-or-Gilgamesh selector and the Part 2 content. Version 4.5 runs from August 25 with its second phase closing October 6, so 4.6 sits beyond that and has no announced dates yet.

The Saber and Archer banners are the open question. They have survived thirteen months without an end date. If they close alongside 4.6, "permanent" was always shorthand for a two-year window, and the same will apply to Rin and Gilgamesh. We will update this piece when either resolves.

FAQ

Is the Honkai Star Rail Fate collab still available? Yes. Part 2 has been live since July 24, 2026, and the Part 1 banners for Saber and Archer never closed. No end date has been announced for any of the four banners, though Part 2 content is dated to the end of Version 4.6.

Should I pick Archer or Gilgamesh as the free 5-star? Take Gilgamesh if you already own Archer from Part 1, or if you own Saber, since the two share a joint follow-up. Take Archer if you are pulling Rin Tohsaka, since that is the other pairing. The claim window runs to the end of Version 4.6.

Does my regular pity carry over to the Fate banners? No. The four collab banners share one pity counter of their own, 90 pulls for a 5-star and 10 for a 4-star. Character Event Warp progress does not transfer in either direction, and collab banners have no featured 4-star rate-ups.

What Path and element are Rin Tohsaka and Gilgamesh? Rin is 5-star Erudition, Quantum, on "The Gem Coursing in Red". Gilgamesh is 5-star Destruction, Lightning, on "Of the Beginning, Enuma Elish". Both opened July 24, 2026.

How much Stellar Jade does the collab story give? 420 Stellar Jade across the seven chapters of "Imagenae: Holy Grail War", plus 430,000 Credits and assorted materials. It unlocks at Trailblaze Level 34 after "So Laughed the Masses".

Which version did the Fate collab launch in? Part 1 launched July 11, 2025 in Version 3.4, not 3.6. Version 3.6 was the end of the originally guaranteed window, and the banners stayed open past it. Part 2 launched July 24, 2026 in Phase 1 of Version 4.4.

Is there an English dub for the Fate characters? No. The Fate characters ship with Japanese, Chinese and Korean voice-over only.