Oh shit, Nintendo stealth-dropped the Expansion Pass for Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave. The pass adds new content in several waves, with the first one already out now.
Wave 1 is a little anemic but sure to please Three Houses fans with the addition of four legendary hero’s relics: The Areadbhar spear, the Aymr axe, the Failnaught bow, and the Sword of the Creator. Maybe Seteth, the only guy to straddle both Fortune’s Weave and Three Houses, will make a comment alluding to any previous users of the weapons. A Flame Lord can dream.
Waves 2 and 3 are where things get really interesting. In Wave 2, which has an estimated time of arrival of holiday 2026, new outfits will be added to the game that any of the Flame Lords or their companions can wear—the trailer features Father Fabio in a fit that you wouldn’t expect to find a man of the cloth wearing. But I’m more interested in the fact that several of the game’s gods will be joining you in the fight to save the world.
Fire Emblem is one of those rare games in which gods are real and actually walk among the people. And I remember thinking, as the story of Fortune’s Weave initially unfolded, that if the gods’ world is under threat from one of their own, why leave the responsibility of stopping the evil to mere mortals? After all, there never seems to be any kind of non-interference pact in these games and other stories of godly treachery to serve as an explanation for why the other all-powerful divinities don’t get involved. And there’s a mechanic in the game where you can be granted a portion of the gods’ power in exchange for showing devotion. So it’s neat to see that they’ll be fighting alongside you. The three new companions are Smyrnos, Jurah, and Aurora (!!!), who should have big implications for one of the Flame Lords that I won’t spoil here.
Wave 3 sounds like it’ll be the biggest update for the game announced so far. That one, which has a nebulous release date of 2027, will add stories for the big four characters who are not the Flame Lords: Anatolia, Talimunn, Bertand, and Orchel. Before Fortune’s Weave was launched, the developers at Intelligent Systems revealed that the game was originally intended to have eight main characters, and you can see the relics of that decision in the game itself. In its opening minutes, as Eshmel walks up to a huge temple, he passes eight statues; four were called out as the Flame Lords of Dagda while the other four were kinda just there, like they were supposed to have some sort of significance too. It seems like the story content might be cobbled from the routes originally planned for those characters.
But while I do love the idea of more story, especially for Anatolia and Talimun, sheesh. The game is big enough as it is. As one commenter on YouTube put it, “Chill bro, I’m not even done with my first route,” which mood. The expansion pass is also kinda expensive at $35, bringing the total cost of Fortune’s Weave and all its extra content to over $100. Damn.