Fire Emblem Shadows

Fire Emblem Shadows^[b] is a 2025 social deduction strategy video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for Android and iOS. It is the second mobile spin-off of the Fire Emblem series following Fire Emblem Heroes (2017). Unlike Heroes, the game forgoes the series' traditional tactical role-playing gameplay in favor of multiplayer social deduction. Players engage in combat where one of their number is secretly a traitor who can sabotage others. After combat's completion, players vote on who they think is the traitor and subsequently must fight the traitor afterwards. The game features an in-game story split in two halves; the light half focuses on Kurt, a royal who is forced to flee her home country after it is attacked by the Goddess of Shadows, Fenris, while the dark half focuses on servants of both Fenris and the Light Goddess Naga as they engage in combat with each other.

Fire Emblem Shadows
Key artwork, featuring Zasha (left), Kurt (middle), and Estel (right)
Developer	Intelligent Systems[a]
Publisher	Nintendo
Series	Fire Emblem
Platforms	Android, iOS
Release	September 25, 2025
Genres	Strategy, social deduction
Mode	Multiplayer

The game was announced and released on September 25, 2025. The game received negative reviews from critics, who felt the gameplay was simple and lacked depth in terms of its social deduction gameplay.

Gameplay and plot

Gameplay

A first in the series, Shadows features real time strategy gameplay with social deduction elements. In online multiplayer battles, three players work together against a series of enemies, with one player secretly serving the Goddess of Shadows, Fenris; this player can attack and sabotage their allies. Combat is automatic, with characters moving on their own; players can control when they use magic and healing abilities. Players can adjust the skills and weapons they use outside of combat. Each game is split into two rounds; in the first, losing is impossible, and players may do whatever they wish to convince or demonstrate to the others that they are not the traitor. After combat, players must vote on who they believe is the Fenris-aligned player; if players guess correctly, they receive additional health. Players then must fight the traitor in combat during the second round; if the other players defeat the traitor, they win, but the traitor wins if they defeat the other players.^[1][2][3][4]

Plot

An image of combat in Fire Emblem Shadows, with the player controlling Kurt preparing to use a spell to attack enemies

The game is split into parallel light and shadow stories that are told in short, visual novel-style chapters and grouped into episodes known as Books. The player can unlock chapters by playing multiplayer battles.^[3]

In the first chapter of the light story, Kurt, the prince of the Kingdom of Ast, flees the country after it is invaded by servants of Fenris. Kurt, actually a woman who is hiding her gender due to a lack of male heirs, and her retainers and allies, seek to flee to the neighboring kingdom of Holtz, where Kurt's fiancee, Rose, will grant them safety. Throughout the journey, Kurt and her allies are pursued by servants of Fenris, led by the siblings Hati and Skoll. Skoll appears to kill Kurt after she refuses to make a dark pact, though Kurt believes this to have been a nightmare. The group realizes that a traitor is feeding information to Fenris; Gotthold, one of Kurt's retainers, makes a verbal slip, and subsequently admits his betrayal, having made a pact to secretly save Kurt's life following Skoll's attack, which was not in fact a dream. Commanded to kill Kurt, Gotthold manages to defy the order and retain his free will, though this causes him to perish as punishment for breaking the pact. The group subsequently makes it to Holtz. The second chapter of the light story focuses on the character Joachim, a boy who has the blood of Fenris inside of him and lives in a village with disciples of Naga. Joachim's village is destroyed by servants of Fenris, and Hati and Skoll approach him. Joachim rejects their offer to join Fenris and attempts to fight the other servants but is unable to defeat them.

In the first chapter's shadow story, servants of the Light Goddess Naga, Sai and Shea, encounter an amnesiac woman named Lyn, who they believe was summoned to help them fight Fenris, while Hati and Skoll recruit others to their side. Sai, Shea, and Lyn encounter Hati and Skoll, who have recruited another amnesiac named Dimitri, who proceeds to fight Lyn. In the second chapter's shadow story, the forces of Fenris plan their attack on the village while other servants of Naga arrive.

Release and reception

Release

Fire Emblem Shadows was revealed and immediately released on September 25, 2025 in over 70 countries^[5] on multiple devices, including iOS and Android.^[3] Barring licensed releases, it is the first mobile game to be released by Nintendo in six years since the 2019 release of Mario Kart Tour.^[6] It is the second Fire Emblem game released on mobile, following the 2017 release of Fire Emblem Heroes.^[2] Shadows was developed by Intelligent Systems in conjunction with the company DeNA.^[1]

The game uses a free to play model.^[1] Unlike Heroes, a gacha game, Shadows uses microtransactions, including a season pass, which allows players to unlock returning character Lyn. Following the release of Shadows, the game's incarnation of Lyn was added to Heroes, which caused the latter game to experience a surge in revenue.^[7]

Critical reception

Reception

Aggregate score

Aggregator	Score
Metacritic	37/100[8]

Review scores

Publication	Score
GameSpot	3/10[9]
Nintendo Life	4/10[10]
Multiplayer.it	4.5/10[11]

The game received "generally unfavorable" reviews according to review aggregator website Metacritic, achieving a score of 37/100 based on 5 reviews.^[8] Hayes Madsen, writing for Inverse, criticized the game as being "simple", feeling it would not be very appealing to players after a few rounds of gameplay.^[12] Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio also felt the gameplay lacked depth, particularly in terms of the social elements of the game, additionally criticizing the microtransactions in the game, as players who bought stronger gear could simply overwhelm other players even if they do not engage with the social elements.^[3] The game was noted by critics as having a gameplay style resembling the 2018 social deduction game Among Us.^[2][9][13]

GameSpot's Cameron Koch felt the game went by too quickly for the social deduction aspects to be incorporated effectively, since he felt that microtransactions allowed players to brute force their way into victory regardless of their success in social deduction. Though Koch highlighted the game's character designs and story, feeling that they were effective elements, he disliked the fact they were locked beyond gameplay that Koch felt was boring.^[9] Nintendo Life's PJ O'Reilly also felt that the gameplay was boring, and that the story was rigid and basic compared to other Fire Emblem games.^[10]

Revenue

In the game's first week, the game made $90,000 USD in revenue, a decrease from previous Fire Emblem mobile game Heroes, which made over $400,000 USD in its first week. Over half of Shadows's revenue hails from Japanese players, with 32% hailing from players in the United States and only 1% hailing from Canada.^[7]

Notes

1. Service infrastructure and development cooperation by DeNA
2. Japanese: ファイアーエムブレム シャドウズ, Hepburn: Faiā Emuburemu Shadows