Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes introduces the player character — and it’s not who you think

A new trailer for Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes reveals the game’s player character — and it’s not the main protagonist from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the main game that the musou spinoff is based on. Instead of silent mercenary Byleth, players assume the role of Shez, who is also a mercenary, albeit one who seems a little more smart-mouthed than Byleth.

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes takes place in the same world as Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and similarly the trailer reveals that players will have to pick one of three paths. However, there are some key differences in Three Hopes — for one, the characters now sport different hairstyles. The names of the paths are also slightly different. Unlike the main game, which uses the former school as a stronghold in between battles, most of Three Hopes’ downtime seems to take place in a battlefield campground. It’s likely that this tells the story of one of the factions that Byleth didn’t side with in the main game. Could this be a chance at a good ending, where no one dies, and everyone joins together to defeat the actual big bad? Hey, the Fire Emblem: Fates DLC kinda did it, so why not?

Whatever the case, it appears that Byleth will be on the opposing side to Shez, and the two are destined to cross blades. The game comes out for Nintendo Switch on June 24, which gives me enough time to do the mental calculus and figure out if my old version of Byleth can still be married to Dimitri, if I am playing a totally new character this time.