Fire Emblem Warriors

Fire Emblem Warriors has one dividing line that our six pages on it keep bumping into: the credits. Twenty of the 23 playable characters, six Master Seals, the first memento in every Story chapter from the second and the Chapter 20 character materials all sit on the near side of it. The Lunatic difficulty, the second memento in each chapter, the History maps that hold Lyn and Celica and the last eight seals sit on the far side. This guide opens with the full roster, then walks the line from what a first run gives you to what only a second can.

The 23 Characters

The roster draws on Awakening, Fates and Shadow Dragon, adds two Warriors originals, and hides three more names in History mode, and our Master Seals page scores every one of them for promotion priority. The scores are worth reading as a join order: the low numbers are low because the character arrives after the seals have run out, not because the unit is weak.

A few roles are singular and the seals page says so: Robin is the first Tome user and for a while the only unit attacking Resistance rather than Defence, Frederick the first mount, Camilla the only axe flier, Tiki the only stone user, and Sakura can use staves from the moment she joins. The three at the bottom of the table are the subject of our secret characters guide, which walks each History map to the battle that adds them.

Before The Credits

A first pass through Story recruits twenty heroes as the chapters introduce them and pays six Master Seals along the way, four for finishing a chapter (5, 13, 15 and 18) and two in chests you need a key for (8 and 11). Our items guide has the chapter list; the short version is that anyone reaching level 15 before the credits can be promoted, up to fifteen units, and the page's advice is to do it the moment the option appears because level-ups are fixed and nothing is lost.

Every Story chapter from the second onward also carries two Anna's Mementos, each demanding a thousand KOs plus a chapter-specific extra, and only the first of the pair is reachable now. Chapter 20 is the material farm for the base cast: eighteen characters drop both their common and rare pieces there and Takumi his common one, so a first run ends with half the character materials already open.

History Mode, Alongside The Story

History mode runs in parallel, fought as sprites on a grid map where each win clears the route to the next square. The first three maps are open before the credits and account for nine seals, each paid for an S rank on a specific battle. Invisible Ties is the one to finish first: its five memento battles are the ten pieces of the Warriors Against Fate illustration, the Story chapters supply the other ten, and completing the picture places a level 80 battle on the map that our secret characters page calls arguably the hardest in the game. Win it and Anna joins.

The same maps carry the higher-end materials. Robin's pieces drop at level 80 on Invisible Ties, Ryoma's at 62 and Gharnef's at 80 on The Dark Pontifex, and the Hero Challenges and the first two maps between them hold the enemy-class materials, most of them between levels 10 and 37, plus the five Captain's weapons.

After The Credits

Finishing Story unlocks Lunatic, and with it the second memento in every chapter, which our mementos page says needs the chapter replayed on Hard or Lunatic. It also opens History maps four and five. Noble Lady of Caelin is Lyn's map: fight to the castle on the right, take her level 37 challenge when she appears, then the level 45 battle behind it. Together to the End is Celica's: clear the battles around the floating eyes that guard her, beat her level 35 fight, do the same for three more unique enemies, and finish with a possessed Darios at level 54. Between them the two maps hold the final eight seals, four each, and two of the steeper base-game material drops, Lyn at 60 and Caeda at 64.

Those last two maps are also where the 23 seals stop mattering. With Lyn and Celica joining after everything else is promoted, the seals page gives them a zero for priority and Anna half a point, and it is honest about why: the seals were never scarce, only late.

What The DLC Adds

Three packs, for Fates, Shadow Dragon and Awakening, add three History maps each, and every one of the nine maps carries a Master Seal for an S rank. The materials page reaches into the same maps for its steepest fights: Corrin at level 90 in Grief, Validar at 85 in Knorda Market, and Xander, Navarre and Minerva at level 110 in the Warriors of Conviction battle on A Brush in the Teeth, the highest number on any of our pages. The materials list runs to 37 named characters, fourteen more than the playable 23, the villains among them.

Where To Start

Play Story with the seals page open and promote at 15 as you go. Run Invisible Ties as soon as it appears, because the Anna illustration is one of the longest chains in the game and half of it is in the chapters you are already fighting. Leave the second mementos, Lyn and Celica for the Lunatic run they belong to. The items guide is the reference for all of it, arranged by how hard the fight has to be, and the five Gleamstones on its first table are the reminder that one collectible here asks for no fight at all.

FAQ

How many characters are in Fire Emblem Warriors?

Twenty-three playable, per our secret characters and Master Seals pages: twenty join through Story and three, Lyn, Celica and Anna, hide in History mode.

When does Lunatic difficulty unlock?

After Story is completed once. It is also the setting, with Hard, on which the second memento in each chapter becomes available.

Are there Master Seals for every character?

Yes, 23 in the base game and nine more across the DLC packs. Fifteen can be reached before the credits.