In someFire Emblem series games starting fromFire Emblem Gaiden, the player is confronted with a branching set ofalternate routes, in which the story and gameplay progresses in one of two distinct directions. The player chooses between the two routes, either explicitly through being given the option or implicitly through meeting certain statistical criteria, setting them on one of two paths of successivechapters which they will exclusively follow until the two routes converge back into a single chapter progression. When taking a route, the player is never able to visit the other route during the same playthrough, often resulting in certain characters being available solely based on a player's choice of route.

It should be noted that the "A" and "B" designation lettering is a colloquialism applied by the fandom to simplify talking about such split routes; the games themselves never refer to route-specific chapters by this letter designation, with equivalent chapters in a route instead bearing the same chapter number. The letter designations are, however, used officially on the website forThracia 776, in the same fashion as the fandom's usage.^[1]

Alternate routes by game

Fire Emblem Gaiden andEchoes: Shadows of Valentia

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776

Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem

Fire Emblem Warriors

WhileFire Emblem Warriors's gameplay structure ultimately allows players to play all of the game's chapters, there is one situation in the story mode that plays in a somewhat similar fashion to an alternate route branch. Unlike alternate paths from the mainlineFire Emblem games, both paths must be played to progress, instead of it being one or the other.

In this situation, the game's main characters,Rowan andLianna, split up their forces and each seek out one of the two rival factions from the world ofFire Emblem Fates. In storyline playings of these chapters, characters who are on the opposite side of this split cannot be deployed, but this restriction is removed in free play mode.

References

See also

• Side quest
• Multiple endings
• Fire Emblem Fates,Fire Emblem: Three Houses, andFire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes; games which feature branching, completely divergent routes.