Fire Emblemgames have an interesting relationship with stories. It has to be there to justify the political and supernatural drama fueling many fights, but it’s rarely what fans come to the games for. More often, players want to get to know the playable cast instead, building up their relationships and watching their personalities play out through cutscenes and battles alike. Those battles are also a vital draw, asFire Emblemhas upheld one of the mostconsistent release schedules for a tactical RPG seriesnot only under Nintendo’s banner, but within its genre.
In these respects,Fire Emblem Warriorsdidn’t have much to offer fans. It took many updates for the series’ tactical gameplay to finally creep back in, and its function of bringing together various iconicFire Emblemcharacters was better fulfilled byFire Emblem Heroes, meaning the fandom was content to move toFire Emblem: Three Houses. Now,Three Housesis receiving its ownMusouspin-off titledFire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. Some mistakes the originalFE Warriorsmade could be rectified, butThree Hopesalso needs to look to one of itsWarriorscontemporaries for guidance.
RELATED:The Nintendo Warriors Spin-Off Franchise Is Becoming a True Mainstay
The Problems With Telling Another Fire Emblem: Three Houses Story
One ofFire Emblem: Three Houses' biggest selling points in the lead-up to launch was that it featured a war with multiple sides, and the player got to choose who they wanted to align with. Thesestory paths included the Black Eaglesled by Edelgard, the Blue Lions led by Dimitri, and the Golden Deer led by Claude, as well as another route splitting off from one of the three. This provides a lot of playtime to invested players, but the cracks start to show when a player finishes one path and restarts on another.
To ensure every route had value, lore details and major character arcs were divided up across the different routes. Each house had a core set of characters that shaped the focus of their route, and there wasn’t much room to cover the protagonists of the other stories. This leftThree Housesin the unfortunate situationof having a lot of overlapping pre-time skip content between the routes, but arguably not enough new story to justify playing all of them. Fortunately, it seems likeFire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopesis primed to fix this issue by borrowing some aspects from the most recent NintendoWarriorscrossover.
What Three Hopes Can Learn From Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamitywas advertised as a prequel toThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but it is a much different story. Players who travel a few missions in will quickly realize that the game covers the same characters and general events that would be inBotW’s backstory, but it’s telling a new story resulting from time travel. Several future characters appear and interact with that era’s inhabitants, leading to a new series of events that cannot coexist with the original game. It’s still similar toBotWin several ways, but it’s more self-contained than expected.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopesshould take that notion and go even further; becomingfully independent ofThree Houses.Three Hopesought to build a whole new route to take the story down, merging plot points from the original game’s paths while giving them different conclusions. Having all the houses unite against a new common foe is a cliche, but it is still a new experience compared to what is found in the base game. The promise of radical new content would give players a reason to venture through Garreg Mach Monastery activities one more time, and that’s what manyThree Housesfans want to hear.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopesreleases for Switch on Aug 09, 2025.
MORE:Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes Can Give Retainers Their Time to Shine
