Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave director Toshiyuki Kusakihara has revealed that the developers of the RPG once considered having eight routes for the game.
Fire Emblem post-Awakening has felt very keen to make things bigger every time. Fates took the Pokemon approach with two different games – you could buy separately, with a third arriving as DLC – then Three Houses took it a step further with the titular three houses (which actually had four routes with side story as DLC).
Engage was a bit more linear, but that seems to be the exception not the rule, as Fortune's Weave is going to one up Three Houses by going for four-tunes (I tried, OK). However, rather than being separate playthroughs, these intersect into one major plotline starring the game's actual protagonist; it sounds huge, but it was apparently going to be even bigger.
In Nintendo's newest "Ask the Developer" interview, Kusakihara explans, "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."
He reveals, "we came up with the bold idea of increasing the number of story perspectives from three to eight." While Three Houses' protagonists were working against each other, the idea of stories intersecting into one allowed the game to expand somewhat.
While eight sounds like a mammoth undertaking, the developers seemed to give it a fair chance, with Three Houses director and Engage producer Genki Yokota (who is also a producer on Fortune's Weave) saying, "Going from three perspectives to eight is a pretty big jump. Kusakihara-san had really developed a clear theme for each protagonist, and I felt it could lead to something really interesting." And as games like Octopath Traveller 2 and Live A Live have proved, you can make a compelling RPG with multiple protagonists that eventually cross paths.
However, it proved to be a bit too much, with Yokota explaining, "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. So, we decided to put the focus on four of those protagonists instead."
Frankly, I'm pleased. Not only would having more protagonists potentially dilute the stories of each of them, but sometimes a game can feel too big. As much as I adored Three Houses, I didn't have it in me to return for Dimitri or Edelgard's stories after beating Claude's. I was originally worried about the prospect of four in Fortune's Weave, but the idea of them being all one playthrough – even if it takes just as long as doing each of the three houses – makes it seem a bit more manageable.
