Nintendo has released new character biographies for Byleth, Lyn, and Corrin, three iconic Fire Emblem characters that are set to make a return in Fire Emblem Engage. This development arrives mere hours after the company revealed new information about Zelkov and Merrin, two brand-new recruitable units from the upcoming game.The latest installment in the long-running strategy RPG series will allow players to summon a wide variety of popular characters from the previous Fire Emblem games. Unlike the gacha gameplay from Fire Emblem Heroes, Engage will handle character summons using a new Emblem Rings mechanic. Equipping Emblem Rings will provide characters with special abilities during combat, while the equipment itself will also serve as a catalyst for summoning other heroes.The new character biographies shared by Nintendo reveal a number of details on what kind of roles Lyn, Byleth, and Corrin will be able to play on Fire Emblem Engage battlefields. For example, Byleth is being positioned as a unit that's best utilized in the center of one's army, as he'll be able to boost other characters' stats, making them more effective in combat. Lyn, on the other hand, should be able to provide consistent value even deep behind enemy lines, with her bio stating that she excels at engaging foes without giving them a chance to counter-attack.
Finally, Corrin's bio reveals that she'll be best-suited for a supporting role, thanks to her abilities to restrict enemies' movement and conjure up a variety of stat buffs and debuffs which could potentially tip the scales of any close encounter. The newly shared character biographies confirm that the returning characters in Fire Emblem Engage will be largely faithful to their original designs. That's something the developers at Intelligent Systems already hinted at in early January when they shared character bios for Marth, Celica, and Sigurd.
While Fire Emblem Engage is one of the biggest new games launching in January 2023, it wasn't that long ago that Nintendo was planning to kill off its series of strategy RPGs due to low sales. Given that state of affairs, Intelligent Systems is still under significant pressure to deliver a commercially successful game with each new release. For some context on what kind of sales Nintendo might be targeting this time around, the company's recent earnings reports revealed that Fire Emblem: Three Houses sold approximately four million units as of today, three and a half years into its release.
Fire Emblem Engage is scheduled to hit Nintendo Switch on January 20, 2023.
