A Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes demo has emerged, but you can’t play it yet

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes launches later this month and in preparation, a demo’s just appeared on the Nintendo eShop. Problem is, you can’t currently play it.

Following its surprise announcement during February’s Nintendo Direct, we’ve not had long to wait for Three Hopes. Launching on June 24, Nintendo has yet to formally announce a demo’s existence, but one has just been spotted on the official Nintendo store page (credit to My Nintendo News). However, if you click on ‘download demo,’ right now, nothing happens, so you’ll have to be patient. 

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes acts as a follow up to 2019’s Three Houses. Bringing these characters into a new journey, this spin-off ditches Fire Emblem’s turn-based action for Dynasty Warriors-style combat. 

It’s a near-identical approach to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, which offered a prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild back in 2020. Like Three Hopes, that was also developed by Koie Tecmo’s Omega Force team.

Try before you buy

Many fans were thrilled to see a new Fire Emblem game announced, but not everyone was pleased by this change. 2017’s Fire Emblem Warriors made a good effort at translating this tactical RPG series into a wider action setting, but it didn’t quite stick the landing. So, it’s not too surprising to see Nintendo pushing Three Hopes with a demo, considering Age of Calamity did the same. 

Either way, Nintendo’s not limiting that push to these occasional spin-offs. Its other big June release, Mario Strikers: Battle League, received a ‘First Kick’ demo last week. Across 2022, it previously let players trial Triangle Strategy and Kirby and the Forgotten Land too. Both were pretty successful for Nintendo, so, in some small part at least, this try before you buy strategy seems to be working.