Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes devs on monsters, Expeditions, base camp, character inclusions, more

Exceeding Three Houses?! The vast amount of voice content that even surprised the developers.

The voice actors recorded new voices for the game, but they were acting as characters that they have not performed for a few years. Can you tell us if there was anything interesting that happened or if there was any particular direction you took with the actors?

Iwata: While recording, we had scenario writers there (at the studio) who were involved in writing the original Three Houses. While it was inevitable that all of the voice actors took time to settle into their roles, everyone knew what they had to do. It also helped that they all remembered the characters well. There were no big issues that arose. The veteran voice actors were very reliable, and moreover, we were surprised with the young ones who all seemed to stand out and have changed in the two years – they impressed us with how good they were!

There are more lines from the Ashen Demon in this title than there were in the original story. How were Yusuke Kobayashi and Shizuka Ito who acted as Byleth?

Iwata: Since Byleth has been altered significantly when compared to the original story, we took that into consideration when explaining the details to the actors. We did hear about some issues coming up during this, but when actually hearing their voices, they did an excellent job of understanding the character well, such as knowing how much of a threat they are as an antagonist and representing Byleth as a character who did not mature well emotionally as a result of not going through military school. You can feel that backstory through the voices in the game.

As someone who played the original game, it felt fresh hearing Byleth talking a lot in game.

Suzuki: It does make you think, “wait, they talk this much?” (Laughs)

It feels as though there is a lot of voice content in this game, not just limited to Byleth… How does that compare to other Warriors games?

Suzuki: Well, looking at the sheer quantitative number, it matches or even exceeds the original Three Houses. Compared to other series, this game had astronomically more voice acting, I think.

Iwata: If we showed the word count to other Warriors development teams, they would probably say, “Hey, you seem to have made a mistake in the digits.” (laughs)

In FE: Three Houses, there would have been lots of voice lines recorded, but considering that there are more voices in FE Warriors: Three Hopes, wouldn’t it have been difficult recording it?

Suzuki: Truth be told, it did take a long time to record the voices. We recorded the voices over many sessions over many days. We had everyone in the cast work very hard on it.

The many scenes where you feel the characters come to life at base camp

Earlier in the interview, all of you mentioned that you are big fans of FE: Three Houses. We want to hear some points that you paid particular attention to.

Iwata: In regards to the base camp, we aimed to make this place show how every character lives and spends their daily lives, like the Abbey in Three Houses. Take a scene where the protagonist has a meal, for example. It’s not just two people, but there are many other friends and allies who surround the area. We tried hard to include these small details to give life to all the characters. We did not want to have these units and characters as part of an item that you had to upgrade or as part of an UI. When compared to the original Three Houses, this base camp is kept compact. We cut down on spaces, but instead placed more emphasis on having characters live in these spaces and made it more present in the game.

It is a great feeling within the camp to be able to help out here and there. Being able to see the characters interact, but also seeing small details such as characters cleaning or doing maintenance on their weapons, the camp felt very clearly lived-in.

Iwata: These sort of interactions and actions would have been very easily taken out of the game to save time in development. All we had to do was put some sort of result screen showing the upgrades completed, but that simply didn’t feel right. We tried to make sure that the gamers would enjoy these small elements while playing the game.

Although it wasn’t completely peaceful, it was nice to see cats and dogs in the base camp.

Iwata: We did have some doubts, as technically the base camp is located in a battle zone, but we decided to go through with it anyway. (laughs) It is part of the Three Houses setting.

Was implementing the cats and dogs a similar process to putting in other systems similar to those in Three Houses, such as the gift system?

Iwata: Yes, indeed. It only made sense to have this system in game to maintain morale and support. It could have been substituted with another system, but in the end to be able to give characters you had a particular interest in a gift is a very nice gesture to have and great to have it included in the game.

The world of Fodlan expands by playing through Three Houses and Three Hopes

Why were characters like Rodrigue and Holst, who are non-student playable characters, included in the game?

Hayashi: It’s been a tradition-like theme to have many playable characters in these Warriors games. Just because a character was not an unit in the original game does not instantly cut a character out. That would ruin the appeal in this type of game.

It was surprising to see some unusual characters join in the game as playable characters.

Hayashi: It sure is! For instance, in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the more you play the game, the more surprised you are to be able to play some characters that you would’ve not imagined being playable. We want to have players be surprised on who they can get to play as, so we actually hid much information surrounding this. We want to keep these as rewards for those players who play deep into the game, and by doing so, it adds some charm to the experience.

In Three Hopes, there are many characters who made an appearance like Holst or Leopold (Caspar’s dad) who were previously only heard of in stories, but there are also many new characters who were hardly touched on in the original story. For example, people from Almyra, which was a country next to Claude’s hometown.

Suzuki: Like Shahid, who is his half-brother. You need to dig deeper into Claude’s background to understand him better. For this reason, Shahid was one of the characters who we wanted to give an appearance in the game from the start of development.

Hayashi: There are actually many characters and backstories that were made for Three Houses but never made it into the game. We wanted to use those unused parts since we were remaking it as a Warriors title. Therefore, the details around Almyra are not completely made up for this game, but were pre-existing.

Suzuki: All of these details were things that were originally supposed to be told in Three Houses, but couldn’t be implemented, so it was our intention to try to add it in this game.

Claude’s real name was revealed in Nintendo Dream’s interview.

Hayashi: It sure was! It was talked about a lot in the game, but there are many more details that have not been revealed (laughs).

In an interview for Three Houses, there was a mention of a Fodlan timeline that spanned over 10,000 years with many details recorded, and that Three Houses is only a small part of that big picture. Does that mean that in Three Hopes, there are many parts that are left untold?

Suzuki: That’s right. The story itself is just a fates story, but all of the details and settings are linked to Three Houses. So this game can be enjoyed to fill in small gaps and expand the world from Three Houses. We encourage those who like the scenario and story telling aspect to pick up this game and play it.

Hayashi: It sure was a weird feeling reading through some of the details from Three Houses during development, reading many things that I was completely unfamiliar with. It made me think “Wait, I did play Three Houses, didn’t I? So what is this story?” (laughs) It made me realize that Three Houses goes beyond just the gameplay, and that there was much depth to this game.

It did feel as though every little detail was made with Three Houses in mind.

Hayashi: That’s correct. As mentioned earlier in the interview, we thought that originally it wouldn’t be a great idea to focus solely on Three Houses. This made us think of an idea to bring in a gate from another dimension that brought the other Fire Emblem characters. While making the list for which characters to bring… but while developing it made us realize that for Three Houses to shine, it was better to only use the characters from Three Houses, so we scrapped the idea of mixing other titles. As we said before about the Fodlan timeline, because there was already such a rich world created, it was better to use what we had rather than adding more to the side. With this change of thinking, we realized how great Three Houses was while developing Three Hopes.