According to Zippo, Intelligent Systems have been working on this new Fire Emblem remake for some time, and that it’s development is “nearly complete.” But what exactly is is going to be a remake of. Zippo is unsure of that, but states that it could be remaking either Genealogy of the Holy War, which was the fourth mainline entry in the series and launched for the NES, or The Binding Blade, the sixth mainline entry that launched for the Game Boy Advance.

Both games only ever came out in Japan, so as Zippo points out, it would make sense for either of them to get the remake treatment. That would also follow the pattern the series has followed with its remake. The DS’ Shadow Dragon was a remake of the series’ first game, Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, which never released outside of Japan until coming out for the Switch just last year, thirty years after its original release. Meanwhile, the 3DS’ Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia was a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden, which, too, has never released outside of Japan.

Of course, this is still an unverified leak for now, so as likely as the scenario seems, it’s best to tread with caution until we hear something official from Nintendo (which hopefully won’t be too long from now).

Meanwhile, in the same blog update, Zippo reiterated that a new 2D Donkey Kong game is in development, and that Nintendo plans on turning the IP into its next multimedia juggernaut, following in the footsteps of Mario. Read more on that through here.

Another Spirit Board event is taking place in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the weekend. This one will be familiar to players – it’s actually the second part of the Fire Emblem Fest that took place in December. The event will start today at 10 PM PT and end on January 20th at 10 PM PT.

This event sees Azura and Caeda returning, but there will be some new Spirits as well, like Leo and Takumi. Be careful though – some of them may be ranked Ace and thus pose a much tougher challenge. Don’t worry though – extra Gold can also be earned from completing Fire Emblem Fest encounters throughout the weekend.

Spirit Board events till now have increased the opportunities to fight certain Spirits in different encounters. Winning Spirit Board encounters and garnering new Spirits – for additional XP, candy, and whatnot – is important for increasing your overall strength. Hence, these Spirit Board events provide good incentive for players, and a nice little boost for those who play infrequently.

The Spirits Event "Fire Emblem Fest (Part Two)" takes place 1/17, 10pm PT – 1/20, 10pm PT! During this event, Spirits from the Fire Emblem series are storming the Spirit Board, including ones that did not appear in Part One. You can also get extra gold! #SmashBrosUltimate pic.twitter.com/MjNrLD8lvG

— Nintendo Versus (@NintendoVS) January 16, 2019

Last week’s Spirit Board Event in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate allowed players to take on spirits of characters wearing spectacles (no, really) with more frequency than normal, but the next event is all about Fire Emblem. It’s like Smash Bros. has become self-aware about how flooded its roster of characters is with characters who’ve appeared in Fire Emblem games over the years.

Starting on December 20th at 10:00pm PT, various Fire Emblem characters will be appearing on the Spirit Board, all the way up to December 23rd, 10:00pm PT. Apparently, this is going to be a two-part event, so the Fire Emblem fest is going to go on beyond that date- but Nintendo warns that there will be a few sprits who will be exclusive to part one of the event, and a few that will be exclusive to part two.

Azura, Caeda, Eliwood, and Eirika are going to appear most commonly throughout the first three-day period, while other characters such as Alm and Celica, Draug, Leif, Linde, Merric, Minerva, Seliph, Wrys, and many, many more will also pop up on the board (via Siliconera).

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is out now on Nintendo Switch. It’s been, predictably enough, selling strongly ever since its launch, having sold over 3 million units in 11 days in the US, and crossing 1.6 million units sold in total in Japan in the same period. Read more about it through the links.

The three-day "Fire Emblem Fest Part 1" event starts in Super #SmashBrosUltimate on 21/12! It's a grand gathering of spirits from the #FireEmblem series! Beating these spirits will earn you extra SP. Note that some spirits appearing in part 1 will change for part 2. pic.twitter.com/0Hz8NURyge

— Nintendo of Europe (@NintendoEurope) December 19, 2018

Not so long ago, Fire Emblem was on the verge of cancellation- sales of the franchise had been steadily declining over the years, and it was simply becoming far too unprofitable to continue making these games. Then Fire Emblem Awakening released, got incredible critical reception everywhere, and ended up selling almost 2 million copies worldwide. Last year’s Fire Emblem Fates only continued that kind of success for Nintendo, and the series’ fate was sealed- it would now be one of Nintendo’s major tentpole franchises going forward.

How major? Well, during yesterday’s Nintendo Direct broadcast dedicated solely to the Fire Emblem series, Nintendo revealed not one, but two new Fire Emblem games in development. One of them, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, is coming to the Nintendo 3DS (which will, at this point, clearly never die) this May. Shadows of Valentia is actually a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden, which was released in Japan a long time ago, but never in the west. It is a game starring Marth, the most iconic character from the series, and its story actually serves as a prequel to Fire Emblem Awakening, so it should all work out for 3DS owners.

Those 3DS owners won’t be the only ones getting Fire Emblem action, however- Nintendo also confirmed that a brand new game in the series is in the works for Nintendo Switch, and that it is slated for a 2018 launch. No other details at all were shared- but the prospect of the very first HD Fire Emblem game ever has us all pretty excited.

Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia launches May 19 on Nintendo 3DS.

You can kiss your smartphone’s battery goodbye- on the heels of their surprisingly successful smartphone debut Miitomo, Nintendo have announced their next two games for smartphones. And they are two properties that are extraordinarily well suited to mobiles- Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing.

Animal Crossing, of course, is basically a franchise made for the bite sized gameplay that characterizes mobile apps- one reason it is so popular on handhelds, I imagine. A game on smartphones could do extraordinarily well, as long as Nintendo does not unnecessarily inundate the user with microtransactions and artificial gating of progress.

Fire Emblem is equally well suited to phones, with its turn based gameplay providing for a perfect fit for smartphones’ touch based controls. With it, Nintendo have the chance to provide a real high end smartphone gaming experience, unlike any that exists so far. Let us hope they do a good job of it.

Both games are due out later this year on iOS and Android devices.

More #Nintendo apps are coming to smart devices, including Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing! pic.twitter.com/ZLsHirPltM

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) April 27, 2016

Although Nintendo has gotten a whole lot better about this lately, localizing all of their own games, and even helping third parties with localizations, so that their games can release in the west, they were pretty bad about bringing over games from Japan to the west last generation. It got to be pretty bad- major Nintendo games such as Fire Emblem 12, Fatal Frame 4, and Disaster: Day of Crisis never saw a release in the west, while games like Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora’s Tower, and The Last Story only came over after a year plus of intense campaigning.

Discussing what motivates their decisions about what games to bring over to the west, Nintendo’s Chris Pranger said, “The hardest thing for everyone to understand and to accept — and I’ve seen this first hand in the company, that this is typified — people think that obviously they’re right, and what they like or dislike has to be the norm. Why would it be otherwise? And they just say the classic “Why do you hate money? Why do you hate money, Nintendo?”

“And it’s like “What are you talking about? We’re trying to make…obviously it has to make calculated risks, but at the same time, one of those risks…and I mean they’ll bring up games that are very Japanese games, like Captain Rainbow for instance. They’ll bring that up like “Look how many people want this. Don’t you want money?” And we’ll be like “Yeah, we do want money, which is why we know it’s a colossal waste if we ever try to localize that in this current market, because look at you people. You don’t make up a big enough group.

“The hardest part for people to realize is how much money it takes sometimes to make a game like…if it’s a Japense game, to bring it over the States. Not just translating and then localizing and marketing, but if it’s a game that has substantial voice text, oh my goodness! That is a collosal cost to bring that over. And some games you look at and you’re like “Well how are they going to bring that over?” and it’s like “Well, they can’t.”

“You look at something like even Xenoblade Chronicles. People love that game, you know, within a certain group. That game is not the type of game that just pulls in enough to justify the costs on that. So that’s like, we got it in the States by luck, that NoE decided “Oh, we’ll take the fall. We’ll localize that.” Okay, cause someone is going to have to eat the costs somewhere, because that game is guaranteed to not sell enough to justify how big that game is. You know, hundreds of hours, all voiced. That’s a lot of money that goes into that.

“And people are like “Why do you guys hate money?” We don’t. That’s why you literally can’t make everything. And people don’t like finding out that their fanbase is actually too small to justify the costs of the thing they want.”

I understand the reasoning here, but there are two intangibles that must be considered here too- diversity in a system’s library, as well as keeping your fanbase happy, both of which are achieved by sometimes undertaking projects that may not be profitable in the end. Sure, a localized Xenoblade probably won’t make money (although Nintendo insists that it did), but it keeps your fans happy, and it adds depth to your system’s library, so why not do it anyway?

Happily, it seems Nintendo has gotten better about it in recent years, so there is that, at least.

In a sense, this is good news- after all the uncertainty that has surrounded the series over the year, we will now be treated to not one, but two new Fire Emblem games, both releasing at once. Yes, Fire Emblem If (Japanese name, it’s English name is still unconfirmed), the next entry in the franchise which was announced for the Nintendo 3DS back in January, and got a new trailer yesterday, will in fact be releasing as two games.

To explain the matter succinctly, the new Fire Emblem game offers players the chance to follow the story of a war from both sides- the aggressors, and the defendants. The release is accordingly split into two games, one focusing on each point of view. Nintendo promises full sized campaigns for each game, and has also confirmed that, after the first six chapters, the games will be entirely different. They have also confirmed differing difficulty levels across the games- while the game based on the defendants will be more in line with the more accessible Fire Emblem Awakening, the game based on the aggressors has been made and fine tuned to appeal entirely to long time fans of the classic franchise.

There is still more- a third piece of the puzzle will also be released as DLC, offering a more neutral take on the story (and presumably the canon version of the events).

It is a release strategy that recalls Pokemon, or, more accurately, the Oracle games in the Zelda series, back on the gameboy color. If Nintendo could pull it off, then we are looking at two new Fire Emblem games at once, which is simply awesome. On the flipside, we are also looking at spending over $80 on Fire Emblem just to get the full story.

Also keep in mind that this release strategy has currently only been confirmed for Japan- in the west, where Fire Emblem is not quite as popular, Nintendo might opt to go a different route. It remains to be seen how it goes.

Fire Emblem If is the newest entry in the saga, which will be launching exclusively on Nintendo 3DS next year. The previous entry, Fire Emblem: Awakening, was a runaway success, selling over a million copies worldwide, and garnering widespread acclaim.

Nintendo recently held a Nintendo Direct presentation to reveal several new games it would have out this year. One those was a new Fire Emblem title coming for the 3DS. Check out the reveal trailer above.

The new Fire Emblem, which presumably will have a tagline at the end to distinguish it from others, sees you taking control of a character who must decide between two key factions – Hoshido and Nohr. Players can only side with one and that decision will have a major impact on the story. The Hoshido are more peaceful which provides an easier experience for first time players while the Nohr will present a challenge for veterans.

Fire Emblem will be out later this year and boasts some pretty great looking visuals. What are your thoughts on a new Fire Emblem game? Let us know in the comments and stay tuned for more news from Nintendo Direct.

Nintendo had the latest episode in their Nintendo Direct webcast this morning, and they kicked it off with a bang, starting the presentation with the announcement of a brand new game for the Nintendo 3DS- a new Fire Emblem game, to follow up on 2013’s Fire Emblem Awakening.

The game looked to be using the same art as Awakening, and seems to be using the same engine as well, although the influence this time around seems to be medieval Japan as opposed to the western fantasy aesthetic that pervaded Awakening. Iwata confirmed that the game was being worked on by the same team as Awakening, with a brand new big name manga writer from Japan having been brought on board to help with the story (Awakening’s plotline was one of the few things about it that warranted criticism).

Apart from that, we really were not told much, although the trailer that we got looks awesome. Presumably, the new game (which is titled Fire Emblem If in Japan, although we have no official western title yet) will continue to build on the new mechanics that Fire Emblem Awakening brought to the series, such as marriage, the casual mode, and social simulation, while also bringing back features from older games, such as fog of war.

No matter what, though, we are just excited that this game exists- Fire Emblem Awakening was one of the best games of 2013, and two years later, still stands as one of the best games on the 3DS. With it having been a worldwide commercial success as well, it seems there will be a built in fanbase waiting eagerly for this follow up.

Stay tuned, because we will keep you posted.

One of these new ones was the announcement of yet another new IP from Nintendo- it’s called Codename STEAM, it’s for the 3DS, and it’s a new turn based strategy game from the makers of Fire Emblem that looks like it takes the best of XCOM and Valkyria Chronicles and mashes them up into one game. It’s got a steampunk setting, where you are part of a strike force led by Abraham Lincoln as you try to repel an alien invasion.

This was an absolutely unexpected new announcement, and it looks like Intelligent Systems is channeling its decades of experience with the Fire Emblem and Advance Wars series to make another new strategy game that seems to be equally compelling.

Codename STEAM is out for the 3DS in 2015.