Big News for Fire Emblem Fans as Four Games Announced

With the Switch announcement a few days ago, it’d be easy to think that Nintendo might go quiet for a while. They’ve announced a number of things all at once so they probably deserve a rest by now. That’s not set to be the case though as the company held another Nintendo Direct event to announce another big franchise development.

First up was the announcement that the next game for Nintendo’s mobile games division is set to be Fire Emblem Heroes. Players can enjoy the full majesty of tactical role playing on bite sized maps designed fit nicely on a smartphone screen, even when playing in short bursts. Lead your army with easy touch and drag controls, including the ability to attack by simply swiping an ally hero over an enemy. If you manage to defeat every enemy on a given map, victory will be yours.

The heroes are depicted in new art hand-drawn by a variety of illustrators, and their voices have been newly recorded. Beyond the main story mode, players can engage in other modes to strengthen your army, compete, against others, and more. Free and timely updates will continue to add new characters and content for additional hours of gameplay as well. Nintendo stated that “The game will be free-to-play but with options for additional purchases.”, so we’re assuming microtransactions, but a “try before you buy” style like Super Mario Run might not be out of the question.

To prepare for the launch of Fire Emblem Heroes, Nintendo have created the Fire Emblem Heroes: Choose Your Legends event. Fans can visit a dedicated website to browse through characters from the Fire Emblem franchise and select the ones they’d like to see make an appearance in Fire Emblem Heroes. The global community’s top-ranked hero and heroine will then be featured in Fire Emblem Heroes as Choose Your Legends event characters. Nintendo Account holders will receive a Platinum point bonus for voting.

There was also an announcement of a somewhat less new game. 1992’s Fire Emblem Gaiden is being remastered for the 3DS. This title was originally a Japanese exclusive, but the remake, dubbed Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, will be released worldwide. The title has been remade from the ground up, including multi language voice acting and support for Amiibo. It’ll be arriving to the 3DS on the 19th of May.

Another new game will be coming in the Autumn as well. Fire Emblem: Warriors is being cross developed with Koei Tecmo. The title is akin to the Hyrule Warriors crossover that we saw on the Wii U and features development from the same programming team. It’s being developed separately for both the 3DS and the Switch.

The last announcement was the one that people had been hoping for, a brand new full Fire Emblem title. This time round, the game will be a home title rather than the more common portable platforms. Of course, with a 2018 release, this will be a Switch exclusive, meaning that you could argue that it counts as portable as well. We don’t have much information on this as-yet-unnamed game just yet, but we do know that we can expect it sometime in 2018.