A day after the major Nintendo Switch presentation event, Nintendo is back at it again and announcing a special Nintendo Direct focused on Fire Emblem.
Fans have been anxiously awaiting Nintendo's full unveiling of the upcoming Switch console for quite a while now. It seems building anticipation for the event has gone hand in hand with maintaining radio silence, as Nintendo's once frequent communication channels went quiet over the past several months. It appears that the Nintendo Switch presentation broke the dam, however, as less than a day later, Nintendo is ready to announce the next Nintendo Direct.
The topic of the latest Nintendo Direct is to be Fire Emblem and it will air in less than a week, on January 18. For those who weren't watching yesterday's Nintendo Switch presentation, a new Fire Emblem game was announced for the Switch platform – Fire Emblem Warriors from Koei Tecmo. The game was only briefly teased with a short cinematic trailer. In the Nintendo Direct announcement, it's rather explicitly said to be a Fire Emblem event and not a Fire Emblem Warriors event.
Fire Emblem Warriors, despite only being teased, should, as a concept, be familiar to most gamers. While nothing's confirmed, it's likely to be akin to the Wii U success story, Hyrule Warriors. Nintendo's partnering with Koei Tecmo, the Dynasty Warriors developers, to create similar games with Nintendo franchises. Nintendo has to be planning to fully reveal the game and hopefully announce a release date too.
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Fire Emblem Warriors isn't the only announced game within the franchise, however. Recall that Nintendo is also working on a Fire Emblemmobile game set in the franchise's universe. That's another game that Nintendo could spend a Nintendo Direct's worth of time unveiling. After the surprisingly cold financial reception to Super Mario Run, Nintendo is probably incentivized to announce what's coming next. Watch carefully for Nintendo's paradigm shift towards microtransactions.
Between Fire Emblem Warriors for the Nintendo Shift, a new Fire Emblem for mobile platforms (and maybe Nintendo Switch too), Nintendo could easily fill an entire Nintendo Direct. There's always the possibility that Nintendo also brings up last year's Fire Emblem Fates for the 3DS, which would be great considering it's the most recent game in the main series. Still, as exciting as it is to speculate about, Nintendo's probably prioritizing these other projects.
No matter the content, however, what matters the most is that Nintendo's showing the initiative to be more communicative. The Fire Emblem Nintendo Direct will air on January 18, which will be less than a week after the Nintendo Switch presentation. Maintaining that level of activity could prove a great boon for a Nintendo that really needs the Nintendo Switch to succeed.
The Nintendo Switch will launch on March 3 for $299.
