As Fire Emblem Fates prepares for its release in North America, the game’s director, Kouhei Maeda, producer, Masahiro Higuchi, and Nintendo director Genki Yokota recently held an interview with US Gamer where they revealed their plans for the series’ future and more.
When asked about having to develop two games at once, the interview revealed that Intelligence Systems used one of their teams to work on both games’ core, while the level design was left to separate teams. It was also said that Fire Emblem Fates’ story, which was written by manga writer Shin Kibayashi, was influenced by the developers desire to attract a bigger audience.
As Maeda explained, “We got the hint that the story has to be simple and easy to understand from a lot of people who will be playing the game, and that’s sort of the idea that comes from the fact that he has been involved in a lot of stories, or manga, which is typically read by a lot of people.”
As well as working on the story, Kibayashi also worked on the development of each game’s family members. Kibayashi was involved in the creation of each of the four characters on each path alongside Intelligence Systems’ development team.
Nintendo director Genki Yokota explained that they’re interested in broadening the games’ audience while also keeping what fans like in the series. “Personally, I feel it’s very important to keep what’s been working well in the series,” Yokota explained, “as well as challenge ourselves to implement new things in order to make it more fun and enjoyable for a broad audience.”
When asked who their characters married in-game, Maeda said he prefers Nohr’s Camailla because “I just really wanted to be with a unique type of character, and that was sort of the natural choice that I had.”
Higuchi shared that his character most often ended up marrying the maid Felicia: “Well, there are quite a fair amount of characters that you can build your relationship with, and I do have many characters that I like… but I feel like through my gameplay, I feel like Felicia was the one that I had the support conversation go up to max the most. Since Felicia is always around in the story, it sort of felt natural to build the relationship with her.”
Fire Emblem Fates will be released in North America on Feb 19.
More news
- Get Ready for Battle With a New Pokken Tournament Trailer
- Which Version of Fire Emblem Fates Should You Get: Birthright or Conquest?
- Just Cause 3’s Sky Fortress Introduces Jet Powered Wingsuit and Explosive New Weapons
