A goddess sends you to the past to save four heroes
Nintendo had been teasing Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave for months. Today it opened the tap with a 20-minute Direct devoted just to it, with a date, a story and a twist we didn't see coming. It's out on September 17 and, as rumoured, it's exclusive to Nintendo Switch 2.
The setup is classic-series with a catch. The Dagdan Empire, a prosperous land ruled by gods, holds the Heroic Games: whoever wins gets a wish granted. Five years after that tournament, a reborn demon god named Balor lays waste to the empire and the four heroes who shone in the Games have vanished. That's where you come in: Sothis, the Mother Goddess —yes, the Three Houses one— entrusts your soul with stopping the disaster.
And the dilemma has two exits, which is where the hook lives: you can face Balor's hordes alone, or use the goddess Fortuna's power to travel back in time to the Games and change those heroes' fates at the source. Rewind to rewrite the ending.
Four heroes, four campaigns you can play in parallel
Back in the past, you choose which of the four you support, and the plot shifts with each one. Cai is a village kid competing to get his father out of prison; Dietrich washes ashore and fights out of sheer battle-lust; Theodora is the queen of Saramis, out to restore her goddess's honour; and Leda, a noble-born musician, enters the Games to avenge her father.
The clever part is the structure: each story saves its progress separately, so you can run all four at once and hop between them through time, in the vein of Three Houses' routes. Each hero also has signature moves —called Blaze Arts, spent at the cost of HP— like Dietrich's three-space warp to skip obstacles and strike out of nowhere.
Between battles you manage the city (and your time)
Fortune's Weave is played off the board too. Between fights you explore Dagsion and decide how to spend your days, which are limited. At the Colosseum you train new techniques and scout rivals before a duel; in the commercial district you buy and upgrade weapons; in the temple quarter you earn blessings with temporary buffs; and in the aptitude exams you unlock new classes for your units... if you pass, because you can fail. There are also time-limited quests with rewards.
It's the series' classic tug-of-war between preparing thoroughly and diving into the mud, now with a clock ticking that forces you to choose. It sounds like the blend of management and battle that won people over in recent Fire Emblem games, with the time twist as the house's new wrinkle.
Date, exclusivity and a collector's edition
The essentials, in short: September 17, and Switch 2 only. It's one of those exclusives Nintendo leans on to justify the console jump, and it joins the list of games starting to make the new machine worth it, alongside heavyweights like the return of Xenoblade.
For anyone who wants it in physical form, there's a Dagdan Collection at around $120 with a steelbook, art book, illustrated cards and a map of Dagda. The euro price of the standard edition, mind you, Nintendo hasn't called out yet. On September 17 we'll see whether rewinding time is as good an idea on the board as it looks on paper.
The conversation starts here
Sign in with a supporter account to comment. Sign in
Nobody has commented yet. Want to go first?