Ahead of a rumoured Nintendo Direct, a newly spotted LinkedIn profile sparks theories of a new Fire Emblem being in development.
With any luck, rumours of a new Nintendo Direct dropping by the end of the month will prove true and hopefully include announcements for new first party Nintendo Switch 2 games.
Nintendo has plenty in the pipeline already, such as Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, Pokémon Legends Z-A, and a new Splatoon spin-off, but fans can’t help but yearn for more. Especially when there’s no sign of a new Animal Crossing or 3D Mario game.
While such projects can safely be assumed to be in development somewhere within Nintendo, fans think they’ve found evidence that work has already begun on an equally inevitable new Fire Emblem game.
This comes from the LinkedIn profile of Takeshi Maruyama, a freelance 3D character modeler with credits across multiple Japanese studios, including Square Enix and Sega.
Most recently, Maruyama served as a contractor for Nintendo earlier this year, from January to April, at its Tokyo branch, where he worked on what he describes as ‘the sequel of Nintendo’s SRPG (tactical role-playing game) on Switch 2.’
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It being a sequel immediately rules it out as a new IP, so the most obvious assumption is that Maruyama is referring to Fire Emblem, as it’s the most prominent tactical role-player Nintendo has.
The last entry was Fire Emblem Engage, at the beginning of 2023 and new titles have been releasing pretty consistently every two to three years.
There’s not been any leaks of a brand new title but there have been longstanding rumours of Nintendo planning a remake of Fire Emblem: Genealogy Of The Holy War.
Maruyama’s choice of the word ‘sequel’ has created some dispute as to whether he’s referencing Fire Emblem, with some fans arguing that most Fire Emblem games are standalone stories, so it wouldn’t be accurate to call a new one a sequel (especially if the next one’s a remake).
This seems more like splitting hairs though, and even if it wasn’t, it’s not as if the series hasn’t had direct sequels before. For example, 2007’s Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is set in the same world as 2005’s Path Of Radiance and features several of the same characters.
Another argument for why it can’t be Fire Emblem is that Maruyama worked in Tokyo, but Fire Emblem studio Intelligent Systems is based in Kyoto. However, as one fan points out, remote work is a thing and Nintendo EPD (which has locations in Tokyo and Kyoto) has assisted on the series before.
One fan posits that since Maruyama only worked on this project for four months, it could be a Switch 2 upgrade of a Switch 1 game (so either Engage or Fire Emblem: Three Houses) along the lines of the Switch 2 Editions for The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild and its sequel – which is plausible.
There are other theories, such as the game being a new Pokémon Conquest or Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE but this seem very unlikely, especially as none of them were made in-house at a Nintendo studio.
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