Think Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave's Hero Roster Is Big? It Was Almost Even Bigger
Wait, there were initially HOW MANY protagonists?
by Jim Norman · Nintendo LifeFire Emblem: Fortune's Weave is almost upon us. The game launches later this week on 17th September, and to drum up one last little bit of hype, Nintendo has released a new Ask the Developer interview, going behind the scenes with Intelligent Systems on the latest series entry.
The interview contains all sorts of interesting tidbits about the game's development, but there was one note that really stood out to us as we were reading it: its hero roster was initially even bigger.
Beefing up Three Houses' main trio, Fortune's Weave boasts four central protagonists (Cai, Deitrich, Leda and Theodora), with one "true" hero, Eshmel, above them all. It's quite a tall order, with each hero having their own unique storyline and mechanics, but Nintendo's initial plan featured a whopping eight protagonists with their own perspective on the story.
"We were very fortunate that so many players enjoyed Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but at the same time, we had an enormous sense of responsibility. We spent a lot of time wondering how we could create something that would surpass it," game director Toshiyuki Kusakihara says in the interview. "So initially, we came up with the bold idea of increasing the number of story perspectives from three to eight. The three powers in Fire Emblem: Three Houses are fundamentally at odds with one another. This time, we decided to take the opposite approach, with the stories unfolding along each path ultimately coming together into one".
Eight perspectives sound like quite a lot to keep up with, and as it turns out, it was. While producer Genki Yokota admitted that he "felt it could lead to something really interesting," he ultimately found that the eight-way split was too much: "with eight protagonists, there was almost too much we could do... It seemed like players would have a lot to keep track of, which could make the game feel complicated".
As a result, the team cut things down to the four heroes that we see in the finished product. Roughly half of the development time was spent with this central quartet, but Kusakihara-san felt that the stories weren't neatly coalescing into one as intended. And so, Eshmel joined the party.
"We were already halfway through development," the director says, "but I went to the team and said, 'Sorry, but we’re adding one more character'".
Images: Nintendo
"We needed a character who could look at the whole picture, like the professor in Fire Emblem: Three Houses," associate producer Kenta Nakanishi adds. "I think adding that character made the overall structure easier to understand, with the idea that Eshmel helps the four protagonists rebuild a world that has fallen apart".
The finished result is Fortune's Weave as we now find it. We had a wonderful time with the interwoven storylines in our preview, and it'll be interesting to see how they all line up in the finished product. At least we don't have eight storylines to get through in this busy month of game releases, eh?
Related Articles
News Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Gets A Seven-Minute Overview Trailer
Ready for this week's launch
Preview Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave Dials The 'Three Houses Formula' Up To 11
What's next? FOUR Houses??
What do you make of Fortune's Weave's split storylines? Let us know in the comments.
[source nintendo.com]
Related Games
• Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave (Switch 2)
See Also
• The Best Nintendo Switch 2 Games
About Jim Norman
Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since.
Comments 3
So this was almost Fire Emblem: Octoweave. I personally think the amount of protagonists in the final product is MORE than enough lol.
If only there were a major JRPG with eight main characters whose stories come together... then what if the paths travelled by the full octet, could be described thus?
8 main characters would be too much and becomes bloated. Fire Emblem at maximum usually has three main leads similar to what we got in Three Houses or in the GBA game with Lyn, Eliwood and Hector.
Anything more than that becomes tricky but I like the enthusiasm and can't wait to play it.
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...