The February 2022 Nintendo Direct featured major reveals. Switch owners can look forward to Mario Strikers: Battle League, the revival of a fan-favorite extreme soccer series, on June 10; as well as Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in September 2022. However, the show kicked off revealing Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, the latest collaborative project between Nintendo, Intelligent Systems, and Koei Tecmo.
Koei Tecmo studio Omega Force spearheaded the Musou series, known as Dynasty Warriors in the west, and its hack-and-slash formula has become more popular thanks to crossover titles. Warriors games have released for gaming franchises ranging from The Legend of Zelda to Persona, as well as manga/anime like One Piece and Berserk. Fire Emblem Warriors released in 2017 with a focus on characters from the original Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, Awakening, and Fates, but Three Hopes will exclusively center on the world of Fodlan established in 2019's Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
Similar to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity offering fans a new twist on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Three Hopes promises to tell a different story in the same universe as Three Houses. The reveal trailer for Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes seemingly suggests this story will bring warring lords Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude together against a new threat, but if so, the developer shouldn't forget to include key characters from Three Houses' DLC content.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses and the Cindered Shadows Route
Three Houses leaned into a history of branching story paths within Fire Emblem games. Players influence whether central protagonist Byleth should lead the Black Eagles (Edelgard), Blue Lions (Dimitri), or Golden Deer (Claude) at Fodlan's Officers Academy — and take one side when all-out war engulfs the land following a five-year time skip. Each path results in a different victor while presenting players with new lore, and there's an additional "Silver Snow" route to uncover in which Byleth starts with Edelgard, but backs the Church of Seiros.
An Expansion Pass released in four waves following Three Houses' launch, with the fourth adding a new "Cindered Shadows" side story in February 2020. Cindered Shadows sees Byleth discover a town called Abyss beneath Garreg Mach Monastery, where the Officers Academy is housed. A secret fourth house of school-aged individuals called the Ashen Wolves is being instructed in Abyss, and Byleth — alongside a handful of students from the surface — help protect their home and prevent a religious relic called the Chalice of Beginnings from falling into the wrong hands.
How Cindered Shadows Could Benefit Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes
Cindered Shadows can be experienced on any route pre-time skip, serving as a more difficult challenge using limited resources. Its focus is largely on four characters: Balthus, Constance, Hapi, and Yuri — the Ashen Wolves house leader; each of whom offer new insights into Fodlan from the perspective of rejected vagabonds. However, the Cindered Shadows story also marks the only time players can use Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude on the same team outside the base game's tutorial.
The reveal trailer for Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes shows those original house leaders battling one another and fighting back-to-back at various points. If the story leans into them grouping up, as opposed to the inevitable divisions of the base game, references to Cindered Shadows may be a good inroad. Perhaps Abyss is the one place everyone can hide from the new force threatening Fodlan as the story hits its low point.
It would be silly for Three Hopes to not use this set piece after the original game's DLC canonized its presence in the universe, and incorporating the Ashen Wolves would promote fighter diversity. Warriors games often have dozens of playable characters with varying skill sets, and the Ashen Wolves characters have their stand-out powers to offer; from Constance's unique Pegasus-mounted Dark Flier class to Balthus' gauntlet Heroes' Relic called the Vajra-Mushti.
The Ashen Wolves don't even have to be playable within the base game, as Musou titles like the original Fire Emblem Warriors and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity established a standard of auxiliary characters in the story being added via DLC. Regardless, Three Hopes shouldn't ignore the events of Cindered Shadows just because it was originally a post-game expansion. If anything, its unique aspects could benefit the story of the upcoming spin-off. Fans will just have to wait and see what Three Hopes offers upon release.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes releases for Switch on June 24, 2022.