Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes began as Fire Emblem Warriors 2

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is out now on Switch, and it gives us a new way to enjoy the characters and stories of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Interestingly, that wasn’t always the plan for Nintendo and Koei Tecmo’s Fire Emblem Warriors follow-up.

The latest issue of Nintendo Dream magazine includes an interview with producer Hideo Suzuki, producer Yosuke Hayashi, and director Hayato Iwata. At first, the dev team was interested in creating a sequel to Fire Emblem Warriors, which led to a placeholder name of Fire Emblem Warriors 2. From that point, the team shared thoughts on what direction the game could head in.

After a bit of discussion, the team started to think about diving back into the world of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. This idea caught on, as the developers believed the combination of the positive reception to Three Houses along with the game’s strong setting made it quite an enticing project. The dev team also thought that heading in this direction would be what the Fire Emblem audience would most like, so they locked the idea in. This is when Fire Emblem Warriors 2 officially transformed into Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes.

Had the team decided to stick with Fire Emblem Warriors 2, it would have been a game closer to what the first one was. It would feature a variety of Fire Emblem characters from throughout history, but specifics were not named.