Fire Emblem Engage

The 2023 Switch game where the dragon Alear fights Sombron with twelve Emblem Rings.

Fire Emblem Engage is a 2023 tactical role-playing game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. The seventeenth Fire Emblem game follows Alear, a dragon in human form who wakes from a thousand-year sleep and is drawn into a war against the Fell Dragon Sombron.

Alear travels the land of Elyos gathering allies while fighting the armies of the Kingdom of Elusia and Sombron's resurrected undead. At the heart of the setting are twelve Emblem Rings holding phantom copies of heroes from earlier Fire Emblem games.

Quick Facts

Developer

Intelligent Systems

Publisher

Nintendo

Director

Tsutomu Tei, Kenta Nakanishi

Producer

Masahiro Higuchi
Genki Yokota
Toyokazu Nonaka

Artist

Mika Pikazo
Takafumi Teraoka
Hiromi Tanaka

Writer

Nami Komuro

Composer

Yasuhisa Baba
Kazuki Komai
Hiroki Morishita
Takeru Kanazaki
Fumihiro Isobe
Takafumi Wada

Series

Fire Emblem

Facts from the source article.

Background

A character wearing an Emblem Ring gains stat bonuses and skills, and can Engage with the Emblem to merge with the phantom for a few turns, unlocking its weapons and a single-use Engage action. Both Alear and Sombron want the rings, because holding all twelve allows a feat of immense magic.

Battles play out on grid maps with player and enemy phases. The weapon triangle returns: swords beat axes, lances beat swords and axes beat lances, and hitting with the advantage inflicts a Break status that stops the defender from counterattacking. Chain Attacks and Chain Guards are new, and Classic and Casual modes decide whether fallen units are lost for good.

Intelligent Systems gave Engage a colourful new art style with 3D animated models in place of 2D portraits, framing it as a heroic fantasy quest about a protagonist growing into a hero. Reviews were generally positive, with praise for the strategic depth, music and visuals but criticism of the story and characters, and the game sold over 1.6 million copies in its first three months.