Background

On the evening of October 15, 2026 Nintendo‘s social media channels posted an announcement trailer for additional Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave (FW) content. For me, it was impeccably timed. I had just finished the game not even 24 hours beforehand and was left feeling wistful, and confirmation that the journey hadn’t ended lit a fire (emblem) in me. Crossing the 300-hour threshold, I’m still absorbed in the world of Fortune’s Weave, flaws and all. I’ll embed that trailer further down, so if you want to watch it, just stick with me for a bit.

In an unusual tack for Fire Emblem discourse, potential DLC and how it might manifest became a topic within the first week of release. Very few people had finished the game that quickly, so what whet everyone’s appetite? Speaking for myself, Fortune’s Weave is such an obviously rushed, compromised game that DLC feels almost like a bespoke apology. That it’s still a very enjoyable game regardless makes that hit harder; imagine what the game could have been.

The amount and magnitude of details hinting to Fortune’s Weave being a hatchet job—a victim of its own extreme ambition—felt never-ending during my playthrough. In fact, I’d say they only increased the closer I got to the finish line. It was almost as if the game was developed linearly alongside its narrative progression, and when the deadline pressed down on the developers’ necks, they had to stretch late-game content as far as it could possibly go. There’s still fun to be had with said content, but I felt the climax did not deliver on the gravitas it was hyping up. To summarize, several major and minor characters vanish from the storyline without a passing mention, critically important plot developments are relegated to stills and text crawls instead of cutscenes, and map reuse escalated.

As if to preempt potentially negative reactions from the player base, an official interview with key figures of the development staff was published on Nintendo’s website. Coming a month before the game’s commercial debut, most of the interview is the usual expected hype-generation. The interview subjects excitedly describe new mechanics and features, and repeatedly state their intention to surpass Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the franchise’s most financially successful title.

This intention was so direct that, according to the developers, when considering ways to surpass Three Houses, they targeted its central conceit of having three distinct story paths. What simpler way to surpass Three Houses than to literally, quantifiably surpass it? Main franchise developer Intelligent Systems originally intended for eight separate lead characters and associated routes—more than double that of Three Houses.

To be completely honest, ever since learning of this, I’ve been shocked that the concept was ever taken seriously. Three Houses already struggled to justify worthwhile content for the entirety of its three routes. Players complained about asset reuse, tedious gameplay progression, and perceived false promises. One route, albeit a somewhat hidden “fourth” route, was essentially a stripped-down version of one of the game’s three main paths. I assume most people feel this wasn’t for lack of trying; developer Koei Tecmo likely bit off more than they could chew, and by the time they realized it, were too far into the project to completely reinvent its structure without missing their deadlines.

Intelligent Systems, a team of veteran game developers, somehow believed they could pull off what Koei Tecmo couldn’t. Maybe that much was reasonable, but they also assumed they could more than double their output. I don’t know where that confidence came from. No matter how skilled or efficient a game development team is, resources dry up eventually, and those limited resources have to be divvied out proportionally to a game’s unique needs.

Here’s the crew’s own words:

On paper, the official line for why the protagonists were cut in half was because it would overwhelm players. From what I’ve seen online, few people appear to buy this justification, and I’m one of them. Even with the most sincere, pure intentions, publicly admitting “we ran out of time for our game and had to cut content” doesn’t read well to your player audience or future potential business partners. At the same time, playing Fortune’s Weave makes it so obvious that some things were cut that they may have felt obligated to at least acknowledge their stripped-down narrative. To deny anything took place is just too implausible. Practically and professionally speaking, even if this theory of excised content is correct, these statements from Intelligent Systems are probably the most they could realistically divulge.

Players wondered if the narrative’s missing pieces would be repackaged as additional, downloadable content down the line. For some, it was such an obvious direction to take that it appeared inevitable. Yet for others, previous Fire Emblem DLCs being largely detached from the base storyline implied otherwise.

We essentially have our answer now: the former camp was closer to the mark. Hindsight is 20/20, I know, but I had been promoting the idea that the DLC likely did star the game’s so-called “minor lords,” the four initial lead characters relegated to supporting roles in the final product. My reason was more of pragmatism than predicting the creators’ impulsions. If incomplete content had to be cut from Fortune’s Weave, which I have many reasons to suspect it was, said content still consumed development resources. It still took time and funds to create those assets, and their value couldn’t be reimbursed if they weren’t present in what ultimately went to market.

If Fortune’s Weave was overly ambitious—and it was—it also could have exceeded its expected budget. If it did, that budget would have to be justified by the game’s financial success. However, a game’s financial success is at least partially due to its quality and customer satisfaction, and content that goes unused necessarily can’t be a reason for a favorable commercial performance. On the other hand, unrealized goals can be infinitely invoked to theorize why a game didn’t perform better. “If the game did this, if the game did that, it would’ve been far more successful.” Can’t really prove or disprove such claims, because there’s no alternate universe to compare our current one to.

I’ve seen some assert that the content was intentionally excised with the explicit purpose of nickel-and-diming players, the idea being that players would be forced to double-dip for the “full game.” Such a practice is sadly not unprecedented, with several examples of games launching with completed, inaccessible content later sold back to players as DLC. In those instances, the thing actually purchased is a “key;” a small bit of code that enables the content.

I’m an extremely cynical person when it comes to corporations and economic incentives. I don’t put any anti-consumer behavior against any company, no matter how good that company’s personal reputation is to me or anyone else. When I say what follows, know that it’s not coming from a place of, “Nintendo would never do such a thing!” Under capitalism, businesses should be presumed antagonistic, as they are incentivized to be such.

But I sincerely do not believe this was planned. I legitimately think Intelligent Systems wanted the base game to have all eight lord campaigns, but realized it couldn’t be done by the game’s intended release date. We can “coulda, woulda, shoulda” their planning process all we want, but unexpected things can happen on every level of professional work.

Many absent elements of Fortune’s Weave stick out almost like an open wound, and while this is purely sentimental, I get the feeling that certain expulsions of characters and cutscenes were done begrudgingly. Genuine artists work on these games, and it’s probably painful for them to see something to go out in a form they didn’t envision. I may be reading into things too much, but certain parts of the aforementioned interview come across as almost apologetic, and likewise sincere in their enthusiasm regarding their work.

An obvious retort is that the game should have been delayed—something I would be in favor of in hindsight—but that’s not necessarily in the control of Intelligent Systems. Maybe they requested a time extension from Nintendo and were denied. After all, Fortune’s Weave is a major first-party title for the Switch 2, which is still lacking in such. It fills an important gap in its Q4 2026 market, and the global economy and value of the USD has been on the precipice of Armageddon since the US-Iran War.

What happened, or is happening, may have been the most rational solution to an unfortunate circumstance. Need to get the game out in time? Scale it back. Don’t want to waste your work? Repurpose it as DLC. I think the sheer size of Fortune’s Weave also might make its $70 price tag appear conservative relative to its budget. I’m really just guessing at this point, but for how much content there will ultimately be, and how it all likely cost to make, a total price of $100 might not even be an unfair value. But that’s a whole other discussion and debate.

I think that, regardless of what the DLC ends up containing, a dominant legacy of Fortune’s Weave and the discussion surrounding it will be dedicated to speculating what the game was “supposed” to be at one point in time before being circumstantially forced to size-down. Whether or not you find that fair or unfortunate, I do believe this. Everyone’s gonna be chasing ghosts, but no matter what, Fortune’s Weave is what it is… or will be, once all of its DLC is released.

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Trailer Reaction

I have to credit Nintendo for this trailer’s immediate thematic parallel to Fortune’s Weave: both have a terrible audio mix where voices struggle to trudge above the background music, like a beanpole dude sinking and flailing in a swimming pool. In the game, one can at least mitigate this thanks to being able to set custom channel volumes, but for the trailer, one must simply deal. Oh, well.

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Wave 1: Four Weapons

AKA, “nothing.” It’s pretty standard at this point for recently-released Fire Emblem games to offer special weapons as DLC. It always feels arbitrary and barely alters the game experience, and these ones are especially odd for running up against the free day 1 update giving players four different weapons.

The newer weapons are based on the Hero’s Relics wielded by each of Three Houses’ lead characters, including the player avatar, Byleth. Keeping form, each Fortune’s Weave protagonist receives one, specific weapon.

The preferred weapon types don’t perfectly match between the casts, leading to some odd assignments. Cai receives Areadbhar, while Dietrich wields the Sword of the Creator. Those certainly match.

But for reasons I can’t ascertain, Theodora gets Failnaught, while Leda is left with Aymr. Leda’s default weapon type is bows, so Theodora should be left with Aymr by process of elimination. Naught to mention, Saraminian monarchs like herself are directly connected with axes, as an heir must lift a gigantic, ancient axe in a ritual to demonstrate their right to rule. Theodora is also depicted within the narrative as having the greatest strength of all FW leads.

Yeah, I’ll be frank—I don’t know what drove these decisions. I’ve seen some suggest that weapons were assigned based on matching color themes between the lead characters. But may I be permitted to say I think that would be lousy justification, and leave it at that?

I’m currently replaying Leda’s path, so I took the chance to grab Aymr. The quest is accessed via the Bulletin Board, which confused me for a few minutes because that function hadn’t been relevant to me in roughly 250 hours. Almost no quests are ever exclusive to it. Very odd. The quest itself involves simply speaking to an NPC in Dagsion, who promptly delivers your weapon and marks the quest as complete. Free treats! I do appreciate the chronological consistency of these being prototype versions of the Relics. It’s a nice attention to detail to avoid contradicting lore. That said, there doesn’t appear to be any other new story information attached to these things.

Aymr’s baseline statistics are arguably downright bad. It’s barely stronger than other, generic axes while also having a horrible 50 Hit. With Refinements, however, its Might scales up massively and makes it a force to be reckoned with through relatively little investment. I assume the circumstances surrounding all four weapons are similar. If that’s the case, it’s disappointing that these quests add no actual substantive gameplay and ultimately serve to make an easy game even easier. By comparison, the day 1 update weapons are balanced for the early game, with possibly only the Chosen Lance being worth long-term utility use due to its additional 10 Avoid.

In my opinion, wave 1 shouldn’t have been paid DLC. I’d consider it to be worth $2, tops. It just doesn’t meaningfully enhance the Fortune’s Weave experience. I think what would’ve sweetened the deal was including a new recruit pulled from the game’s many temporary party members. Even without added story content, a new character has a much greater influence on gameplay than redundant weapons. Not off to the best start.

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Wave 2: New Outfits

Continuing down the Fire Emblem DLC checklist, we have alternate outfits for playable characters’ 3D models. To the developer’s credit, these costumes appear more substantial than those of prior installments. The designs are more inspired than “maid outfit” or “casual orphan rags.”

What exactly inspires them, however, is somewhat of a mystery to me. The most surprising of the new duds appears to be some kind of cybernetic, black armor with glowing (?) red sections. One can safely assume they hail from Agarthan/Kunlun technology, though the pattern doesn’t seem to match with their other aesthetics. Maybe we have yet to see the missing link? Or someone just thought it was novel, and the game’s sci-fi elements provided a plausible excuse to have more exotic outfits.

It’s worth noting that Dietrich and Fabio are both shown wearing that same, distinct outfit, but various details like the chest design are completely different. What can we take from this? Will there be variations for every Class in the game, or even every character? Either one sounds like a lot of work, but I can think of no other context in which two characters would appear differently with the same outfit. There’s not even a difference in gender to consider.

Anyway, the outfits look okay. Certainly much better than other Fire Emblem games’ extra costumes. I really would’ve liked it if the update also enhanced customization options for appearances already in the game. Since Three Houses, I’ve felt that completing the game should give players the ability to set their preferred portrait set and 3D model per character. I don’t see the harm in it, but someone at Intelligent Systems seemingly really wants to step on my desire to always give Byleth a certain hair color.

I also don’t see this second wave as being worth paying for. I’m sorry if that’s harsh. If it wasn’t used to justify the cost of the other DLC (due to having to be purchased together), and if it wasn’t implied to be the only new content we’d be getting for two months, I’d feel less negative. These first two waves should be little extra bonuses alongside “actual” content. A franchise like Monster Hunter would probably let you buy waves 1 and 2 separately, and for $2 each.

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Wave 2: Godly Aid

Finally, something impactful. In addition to the costumes, wave 2 will add Smyrnos, Aurora, and Jurah as playable units. I find it interesting that the footage implies they’re only playable during Part 3, as that’s basically the only part of the story when they would plausibly join the player’s army. If they’re that dedicated to narrative consistency, maybe they’ll also carry new dialogue and Supports with them? I doubt it, though.

Aurora not being recruitable in the base game is kind of nonsense, but a late solution is preferable to a permanent issue. Smyrnos and Jurah are bizarre choices for playable units. Due to their greater story prominence, I’d sooner expect most players to desire Solel, Mars, Kalla, or Credna. Greater still is just how odd it is to have some yet not all of them. Just Aurora would make sense; it’s specifically the addition of Smyrnos and Jurah that makes the whole thing odd. Part of me wants to believe this hints at another DLC pass down the line or some other method of distributing the remaining Dagsion Gods. But you truly never know with Fire Emblem DLC.

Likely being exclusive to Part 3, players won’t have much time to raise, develop, and experiment with these new units, lessening the impact of their inclusion. That’s definitely a shame. The narration also implies they’re particularly strong, which would be narratively appropriate, but I’ll repeat the “making an already easy game even easier” argument. Certainly better than the first two waves, regardless.

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Wave 3: New Stories

AKA, the stuff you actually came here for. Boy, what is there to say other than absolutely everything? Every dropped plot thread from Fortune’s Weave fits perfectly in the storyline of one of the snubbed Lords, and there’s a strong possibility we see most, if not all of those resolved.

The main question on everyone’s minds, and likely one that won’t be answered until release day, is “what’s the scope?”

The most common belief is that the campaigns will each be roughly the length of the existing Part 1 Paths, with six Chapters being a popular quantifier. Under ordinary circumstances, I’d find this prediction reasonable and agree with it.

But Fortune’s Weave isn’t a game created under ordinary circumstances. There’s a major possibility that these four campaigns were cut late into development, and by the time they were cut, they may have already been intended for parity with the default four paths. Writ large, video game DLC tends to be solidified after the base game is released, but with Fortune’s Weave, we may be seeing DLC that was originally developed alongside the game we received. Not in the way a fighting game might partition off already completed, playable characters, but a necessary sacrifice to have the main game release on schedule in some cohesive form.

Put another way: we have no idea how much content was created for the minor Lords prior to its presumed culling. While unlikely, maybe they got all the way to 11 out of the standard 12 Chapters. Even rewriting a Path to be shorter could take a substantial amount of time they can’t afford, which requires the whole thing be cut out. I mean, could you imagine having to change the script really late into development? What if the voice acting was already recorded, and you’d have to pay exorbitant prices to get the necessary cast members back for revised or new lines? And what if, at the time they were cut, one Path had eight or so Chapters completed while another had only six? If all parts of the buffalo were going to be used, anything lightweight would need to be brought up to parity or risk player dissatisfaction.

It’s an unenviable mess to consider. Intelligent Systems did dig their own hole with their insane decision to have eight story routes, but I can easily imagine a scenario where what we’re getting now is the best they could make of an unfortunate situation. As a business, they want to see returns on the removed content they already spent money making, and as creators, they likely want to see their full vision fulfilled. And as a player, I want the best, most complete experience possible.

Throwing all that in the trash feels unconscionable to me. And for what’s already a content-rich game that justifies its $70 MSRP, I think $35 for something roughly half its scale checks out. But I’m still being forced to assume the content’s scope. I think it’s entirely possible that each of these new Paths are also 12 Chapters with their own overworld sections, quests, and so on—like they were originally envisioned to be.

That’s certainly what I’m hoping for. It doesn’t even feel unfair to ask for. Yes, Intelligent Systems bit off more than they could chew, but they still have to chew it. They sold me a ticket to the annual chewing contest, and I’m owed a show. Fortune’s Weave indirectly promises and fails to resolve many plot elements, and I think the audience themselves shouldn’t be part of what’s left on the cutting room floor. I am willing to pay them $35, but they have to chew it. Anything less, slap me with the “fell for it again” award.

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What I Expect, and What I Would Like

My expectation for the DLC is that it’s fully-featured and on baseline parity with the main game’s Paths. Twelve Chapters, same structure of heading to Dagsion for the Heroic Games, etc.

But with the benefit of being able to see how players respond to the base game, I’d like to be cautiously optimistic for other additions. I think a flat difficulty increase would do the content much good. FW is far too easy even on Hard/Classic, and with DLC, developers can reasonably expect players to have become somewhat familiar with core gameplay concepts. A higher difficulty might make for an awkward curve if Parts 2 and 3 remain untouched, but it’s worthwhile collateral, if you ask me.

Some changes to Dagsion itself would also be nice. While I’m looking forward to the DLC, I’m less excited about staring at the same hub for another 200 hours. Maybe the hub could be the other side of Dagsion, i.e. “behind” the coliseum? Any change of scenery would be great. Oh, and some arrangement on the music tracks.

It’s reasonable to assume each of the four new lords will have unique mechanics, as the main lords do. People have been happy to guess at what those might be, and I’ll throw my hat into the ring.

Bertrand has players the most curious, as he’s a prisoner stuck in his cell for most of Part 1. Some think the gimmick will simply be that Bertrand’s campaign is just back-to-back maps similar to classic Fire Emblem games, but I think that’s unlikely. Bertrand’s role as a prisoner is so central to the storyline that it’s probably been around since the game was planned to launch with eight Paths, and I can’t imagine Intelligent Systems risking the chance new players would feel alienated if they just happened to start with Bertrand and received a very limited view of the game’s mechanics.

Instead, I expect Bertrand will have a liaison between his cell and the outside world. Gaitz is the most likely candidate of his entourage. Aswan would suit the role, but the story has her essentially under house arrest for much of Part 1, so it’s not very plausible. My prediction is that Gaitz will be controlled for the overworld sections, and there will be a sub-game of devising a training regimen for Bertrand in his cell. Being locked up, Bertrand won’t receive any of his companions’ EXP, so this would solve that issue while being thematically appropriate.

Talimun might be the character I’m most excited to see story content for. His archetype is completely unique for a Fire Emblem lead. It’s hard to imagine his unique mechanics don’t center around him running Vandahl Trading. On the other hand, Talimun is canonically the richest man in Dagda. Will they just give players a billion gold to buy whatever they want with?

No, of course not. There will almost certainly be a narrative justification for why Talimun can’t personally access his funds. I think Ursula, if not himself, will insist Vandahl Trading’s assets be set aside either for operating costs or some large-scale goal that requires exorbitant money.

If the player can utilize his nest egg at all, I think it will be partitioned from the player’s standard gold reserves. It’s possible Vandahl Trading’s money is used exclusively for certain sub-game mechanics like buying out other businesses or land. I also think it’s possible that players will be completely unable to spend gold as the campaign’s main gimmick. All gold might go towards that hypothetical greater goal, and Talimun might be left to purchase things only through the trading of items. This is consistent with the existing Vandahl Trading vendor only dealing in items, as well. Out of my predictions, I think this conceit is the most likely.

Lastly, there will probably be some kind of incentive to gather Drake’s treasures. The synergy between the large world map and Talimun’s compass is too obvious to ignore, and as is, Drake’s treasures already hide across the game’s dungeons. By the time the DLC comes out, many of us will already know exactly where they are, however, so I’d expect them to put some kind of twist on this, if it’s indeed explored.

As a temple priest, I struggle to imagine what Orchel will get up to. Will we have floor-sweeping minigames? No, probably not. I think there could be a mechanic surrounding the strengthening of Orchel by gathering and applying various ore, with there perhaps being an upgrade tree of sorts. Orchel has a suspicious lack of Blaze Arts compared to the other Blaze Lords, and it would make perfect sense if players were originally meant to unlock other Arts and transfer them into later Parts.

For Anatolia, I’ve got nothing. I have no idea what she could do. It’ll probably involve aiding the Kunlun, but I can’t predict how novel they could make that. Delivering them certain items? That’s just the same type of gameplay as quests, and Path gimmicks aren’t that redundant. Being able to enhance her Blaze Arts would be nice, as I found them fairly underwhelming when compared to those of other Blaze Lords.

Whatever Anatolia’s Path ends up doing, I hope we get to see more of the high-tech underground spaces that form many of the overworld’s dungeons. They have a really cool vibe, but you typically go in and out of them once per playthrough. Lemme stick around!

“New Allies, Classes & More”

More
Dropped in the visual roadmap chart rather than the voiceover narration, wave 3 promises new allies, classes, and “more.” I won’t ruminate too much on what “more” could mean, since it’s deliberately-broad marketing syntax. Each Path’s unique gameplay gimmicks alone could count as “more.” Unique maps could count as “more.” It’s not worth speculating on.

Classes
New Classes is the easiest to infer from. There are many classes in FW that are completely exclusive to enemy units. Some of these, like Skellion for Undead foes, I expect to stay exclusive for reasons that should be obvious. Not that I would gainsay being able to Reclass a living unit into something as hilarious-sounding as “Skellion.”

But for Classes that fill a unique strategic niche, I fully expect them to debut in the DLC. One that has stuck out to me is Badhbh Cath, which enables magic while riding a pegasus. There’s currently no way in FW for ally fliers to use Black or White Magic. My preferred units often compete for Troubadour and its successors, so I would welcome the variety in options with high Move. For players yet to experience Part 3, whom may want a surprise, I’ll leave other enemy-exclusive Classes unsaid.

Most likely, each new Path will have one exclusive Class to unlock via a Quest, which is standard in the base game. The base game has some exceptions where certain Paths can unlock more than one Class, but I think that was either motivated by wanting to give players leeway, or having too many hidden Classes to evenly divide into the four base Paths. Why they wouldn’t just make the overflow available by default or unlockable on all Paths, I couldn’t guess. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t expect the DLC to add eight new Classes or anything—not that I’d turn that down!

Allies
Now, this is vague. I think the average person would assume this means entirely new, never-before-seen units will be recruitable with wave 3. I’d advise being skeptical of technically-correct marketing speak, however. For instance, since you can’t recruit the sub lords in Part 1, being able to use them properly could technically be construed as receiving “new allies.”

Is that what I expect? Honestly? Kind of. I’m not totally convinced of my pessimism, but my gut is driving me in that direction. It’s also possible this refers to guest units that only ever stay as guests. Could the DLC allow permanent recruitment, or maybe ways to influence their current role in the story? Maybe…

Obviously, I would prefer new, proper units to allow for greater gameplay variety and teambuilding strategies. And I also relish new faces to get attached to and quality story content. I can only hope for the best. The only currently unrecruitable, unconfirmed unit I’d express confidence in being added is Anna, whom I’ll discuss further down.

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What’s Left?

Even if the DLC campaigns meet expectations, I think anyone who’s finished Fortune’s Weave will agree that everything revealed in this trailer won’t be enough to fill all of the game’s sizable holes. It will certainly help. But resolving issues like Part 3’s lack of map-based battles relative to the Part’s length, and story cutscenes all but drying up would require a separate update. I don’t think that’s likely.

Anna

There are some other hanging details, too. Anna isn’t a recruitable character for whatever reason, despite having unit data for the single Paralogue she’s playable in, as well as a unique Personal Skill. I think many people would’ve expected her to be obtainable in Part 3, but like some other characters, she reappears only to sit around and do nothing. In Three Houses, Anna was made playable by a free update, and I think it’s entirely possible Fortune’s Weave repeats that. This trailer was specifically for the “paid” DLC, so naturally, the potential for free content is still on the table. Anna looks the best she ever has in FW, so it’d be a real shame for her to remain a background character despite the recent, consistent precedent of her being recruitable.

Maddening Difficulty

Going further from that, we may still expect to see a higher, Maddening difficulty added at some point. High-level difficulty modes take a considerable amount of time and effort to implement in games of this scale. A standard Hard difficulty can be comparably simple, because enemy statistics could be raised by small-enough increments to where the player’s expected power still falls within a comparable range. There’s a hypothetical threshold where any individual enemy on a map has their stats raised so much that it fundamentally alters how capable players are in responding to a map’s distinct obstacles.

As such, every dramatic change has to be tested and retested by the game designers. Add 1 to every enemy stat, and the game experience is roughly identical. Maybe for 2, and maybe for 3. But eventually, something breaks, and adjustments have to be made at any number of levels: enemy stats, Skills, spawn points, AI behavior, etc. I’m not surprised a game seemingly already struggling under its own weight does not have a Maddening difficulty at launch.

Even if Maddening is added, will it be fun? Granted, “fun” is subjective. I personally think many Fire Emblem games go too far with their highest difficulty levels. I sincerely love a challenge, but not one that pigeonholes players into a small range of viable strategies. I want my personal teambuilding strategies and tactics to be pushed to their absolute limits, but I don’t want to feel like I’m punishing myself for not making half of my army the same, optimized Class.

If I independently realize a unit performs well in a non-canon Class, I’d like to feel rewarded from their battlefield success, but if they could dominate just as well in any Class, that satisfaction is stripped away. Currently, I think FW, even on Hard/Classic, leans too much in the latter direction by the end of the game. A reasonable high difficulty in strategy RPGs is rarely a simple task, but I still think it’s worth prioritizing. Three Houses and Engage received considerable negative feedback on their highest difficulties, and hopefully Fortune’s Weave learns from that if it implements its own higher difficulty level.

Supports

Much buzz has generated surrounding FW scaling back the number of Support Conversations. It’s not too shocking considering the enormous unit roster, but special attention has been given to how unevenly distributed Conversations are. Likely no one is surprised to see lead characters prioritized, but even supporting characters like Nuzzuo receiving a single Conversation does feel extreme, if not simply unfair.

Could these neglected units receive more Supports in future updates? I mean, maybe, but I personally doubt it. The development team already has so much on their plate, and like I mentioned earlier, I assume voice recording for FW has already concluded. If they had the content already, it would be in the base game. My logic for that stems from the “sub lords” and their compadres already having (mostly) comparable Support distribution to the main lords.

The exceptions stand out to a degree that appears intentional: none of the sub lords have an A support with Eshmel. That’s pretty nuts to do on accident; even many of the game’s most insignificant, unserious units meet that mark (yes, I did S-rank Majide, what of it). I’m extremely confident these Supports will be added with the third DLC wave. Like what, the alternative is that they don’t let you cozy up to Orchel or Anatolia? Get real, dawg.

I’d like to see other Supports added, of course. I just don’t anticipate it. We’ll see. One potential avenue is with actual new characters. Will the Dagdan pantheon have Supports, possibly with aforementioned units like Nuzzuo? That’d result in some odd matches, but it would kill two birds with one stone and explain the absence of content that would’ve likely been prerecorded.

Bonus Units

I’ve always criticized Fire Emblem‘s unlockable content for virtually never including non-canon recruits. Characters like villains, who would otherwise never have a plausible excuse to join the player, could be obtained if the player fulfilled certain conditions like completing the game. I know there’s no end of players who’d delight in being able to deploy Maria in their future playthroughs.

Given how additional characters are often incorporated, including those of FW, like the Dagsion God pantheon, I think Intelligent Systems gives too much consideration to the canon. I think a consistent, logical narrative is worth pursuing, but I believe players would understand extra, post-game units not actually being involved with the storyline and lacking certain content like Supports. They exist for fanservice and gameplay variety, not as genuine extensions of the story.

Just let villains silently sit in our roster after we’ve already experienced the game’s story and world as canonically intended. There’s no harm. If you’ve played any Nippon Ichi Software (NIS) RPGs, you’re likely aware of how easily this can be implemented, especially since unit data already exists for many recruitable prospects.

Oddly, there are rare examples of Intelligent Systems doing this in some capacity. Trial Maps allowed players to deploy villains and side characters, though it wasn’t very satisfying due to them being segregated from the main campaign and its appeal of seeing units slowly grow.

Fire Emblem: Awakening actually took the NIS approach wholesale, with cutscenes contextualizing how the world’s most evil people would end up in your army. I personally believe all of these scenes to be non-canon, “what-if” amusements, but I know that’s debated due to Awakening not receiving a direct sequel to confirm anything. Regardless, they’ve shown a willingness to let players recruit villains before, and the added story cutscenes aren’t a prerequisite by any means, keeping production costs to a minimum.

Fire Emblem: Three Hopes let players recruit three bonus units through the game’s Renown system after completing the game. Datamined assets suggest more would have been available had the game, as is now characteristic of Fire Emblem, had more development time. I can’t help but wonder if Koei Tecmo developing the game made them more willing to buck trends. Three Houses had unused unit data for Sothis and others; maybe Koei Tecmo were considering what Three Hopes did even back then?

Regardless, just give us bonus units already! Please don’t stick them in separate content we’ll play once and never return to.

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Returning to My Obelisk Chamber

Well, writing this was a fun diversion. I’ve been wanting to publish some kind of content on Fortune’s Weave, and indeed have drafted several notes, but I’ve been too busy playing the damn thing (and being sick) to finish it in time. I can’t very well publish a “first impressions” article now that I’ve completed the game, can I? And a full review up to my standards would be like, 200,000 words.

Until the DLC comes out, I’ll be grinding out all Support Conversations, filling the Event Viewer, and anything else that can keep me busy and extract as much content as possible from a game I still can’t let go of. If you haven’t already, consider subscribing to my email list, and you’ll be notified if I write about the DLC as it releases.