Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes' 3 routes were planned from the start, says the dev team
The rule of threes
Fire Emblem: Three Houses gives players the chance to experience a Fire Emblem story through three different perspectives. It is a core aspect of the experience, and crucial to understanding the journey that the various characters take on. Without the ‘Three Houses’ aspect, Fire Emblem: Three Houses wouldn’t have been anywhere as unique as it is.
The teams behind Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes very much recognized the importance of the three perspectives in Three Houses. That only makes sense, as these teams were also involved with that title! This is why everyone on the development staff knew they had to continue the multi-path approach in this latest Warriors spin-off.
In an interview with Game Informer, Nintendo Co. Ltd. supervisor Genki Yokata, Intelligent Systems character designer and supervisor Toshiyuki Kusakihara, and Koei Tecmo Games director Hayato Iwata all spoke on the decision to include three separate routes in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes despite the amount of work it would add. You can see their comments on the decision below.
Yokata: The three routes were in the original proposal from KTG, which showed us just how ready they were for this game. The fun of choosing between the three different houses was a big part of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, so although the main character’s situation is different this time, all three companies agreed that we should definitely do three routes.
Kusakihara: The core of Fire Emblem: Three Houses was telling a dramatic story about what happens when people with strong, uncompromising beliefs collide, so I think it was inevitable that we would create three routes for this game, as well. However, as you said, it did result in three times as much game. But that does not mean that we skimped on the amount of content in each route. When I tested out the first playable version of the game, I was surprised by how dense it was.
Iwata: Because we chose Fire Emblem: Three Houses as our theme, we couldn’t avoid having the player experience the story from three different perspectives. Of course, we had concerns about the amount of development required, but somehow, we never got to the point of discussing how we would have players experience that in just one story. We only ever discussed how we could proceed with development in a way that would allow us to complete all three routes. The development staff was determined to do that from the beginning.
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