The producer and director of Fire Emblem Warriors recently held an interview in Nintendo Dream, talking about the post-launch updates and DLC content. One of the aspects they focused on was how the tried to fulfill fan requests in updates. [Thanks, NintendoEverything.]
Here are the highlights:
Nintendo Dream: This interview will be focused on the first DLC pack if/Fates, but you have also produced free update patches a number of times after release.
Hiroya Usuda, director: “In the update patch for Ver.1.2.0, we added Hero Colosseum to History Mode, where you can easily farm materials; for example, there’s a map where only Manaketes show up. In the update patch released with the DLC (1.3.0), we also did things like allowing to heal base captains from the order screen, and reviewing the evaluation basis for S rank in the New 3DS version.”
ND: You also released an English voice pack as DLC, but were there any requests for this?
Usuda: “It originally came from overseas where we had requests like “We want to listen to Japanese voices”.”
Yosuke Hayashi, producer: “The Japanese version was released earlier, so we released each voice pack as the game was released overseas. We also had a problem with storage with Switch and New 3DS, so we released them not as an update but as DLC.”
ND: I see. So you’re adding many kinds of features.
Usuda: “I’ve always wanted to apply requests from users through update patches. I personally also think that half of them should be applied for creating DLC.”
ND: In the interview in the guide book, you also said “We’ll do what we can to apply requests that have been received by the development team.” Nowadays you can directly receive opinions from the likes of Twitter, but is there any basis on selecting which ones to adopt or reject?
Hayashi: “We didn’t really have moments where we had split opinions on whether to include them or not. These [all] need to be included!”
Usuda: “Our decision basis is on whether to omit things that are difficult technology-wise or period-wise.”
ND: We think there were a lot of requests regarding appearing characters and titles, but are there any other requests you received a lot?
Hayashi: “We received a [fan request] to make a mainline game with the Fire Emblem Warriors system. For example, “I want to play the whole story of Genealogy of the Holy War from the beginning to end with the Warriors system!””
Usuda: “If we were to start making that, it wouldn’t even become Fire Emblem Warriors 2 though (laughs).”
Hayashi: “However, being told that much exceeded our expectations, so they must have really taken a liking to Fire Emblem Warriors.”
Usuda: “I’ve been having a feeling ever since releasing DLC for the Wii U version of Hyrule Warriors –where I worked as director– but being able to apply user opinions in console games post-release like this is a pleasant thing to me. If you have any requests right now, please kindly visit our official Twitter account!”
The full interview can be read here.
Fire Emblem Warriors is available on Nintendo Switch.
