Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave now has a paid Expansion Pass, and the first slice of it is already live. Nintendo announced the pass on October 15 in North America, October 16 in Australia, with Wave 1 out now on Nintendo Switch 2. The pass costs US$34.99, and Nintendo is also selling a bundle of the base game plus the pass for US$104.99.
The headline detail is that this is a single purchase. Nintendo's fine print states that "individual DLC waves cannot be purchased separately," so buying the pass means paying up front for three waves of content, two of which have not arrived yet. You also need the full base game to use any of it.
What Wave 1 actually adds
Wave 1 is the smallest of the three drops, and Nintendo is not pretending otherwise. It adds prototype weapons for the game's four heroes, modeled on the Heroes' Relics from *Fire Emblem: Three Houses*. Nintendo Life describes these as four additional weapons, which lines up with Nintendo's own description.
That Three Houses nod is the clever part. Borrowing the Heroes' Relics reads less like a raw power upgrade and more like a callback for players who spent time with that game, a familiar piece of series history dropped into a new one. Nintendo has not published stat details in its announcement, so how much these weapons change the balance of a campaign is not something the official post answers.
Nintendo Life also reports that version 1.1.0 of the base game adds support for the pass, along with a DLC link on the title screen that takes players to the eShop. If you have the update installed, that is the quickest route to the content.
What is coming in Waves 2 and 3
The bigger additions are still on the way:
- Wave 2 lets you enlist the gods Aurora, Smyrnos and Jurah in battle and adds new wearable outfits. Nintendo's US post lists it for Winter 2026, Nintendo Life reports Holiday 2026, and Nintendo's Australian post says Summer 2026, which is the same end-of-year window seen from the Southern Hemisphere.
- Wave 3 is slated for 2027 and promises new stories, more allies, new class types and more. Nintendo Life names Bertrand, Talimun, Orchel and Anatolia as characters featured in those stories.
None of the waves has a specific release date yet. Nintendo has given seasons and a year, not days, so anyone buying the pass now is buying on the strength of those plans.
Is it worth buying now?
That depends on what you want from the series. If the Heroes' Relics are enough to get you back into a current playthrough, Wave 1 delivers something immediately. If you are mainly interested in fighting alongside the gods or playing the new story content, there is no rush: Nintendo has not announced any early-purchase bonus, and the pass price applies whenever you buy it.
The bundle is the simplest option for anyone who has not picked up the base game yet, since it combines the game and the pass in one purchase. For everyone else, the US$34.99 pass is the only way in, because the waves are not sold individually.
What to watch next is Wave 2. Once Nintendo attaches a real date to the Aurora, Smyrnos and Jurah update, the value of the pass will be much easier to judge, because buyers will finally see how much of it is content rather than promise.
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