Here's exactly how long it takes to beat Fire Emblem Engage

Fire Emblem Engage brings some welcome twists to combat in the long-running Nintendo strategy RPG series. This time around, you’ll be able to team up with characters from across Fire Emblem history for incredibly powerful attacks, adding a new layer of strategic depth. Like most strategy RPGs, it’s full of long, complex battles that demand patience and planning, especially on higher difficulties. So how long does it take to beat it?

Fire Emblem Engage is lighter on relationship building and character development than its predecessor, but despite cutting back on the social features that dominated Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Engage is by no means a scaled-down experience. Here’s how long you can expect to spend in Fire Emblem Engage.

How long is Fire Emblem Engage?

A single playthrough of Fire Emblem Engage should take you around 50 hours, but that number can change a lot depending on what you choose to focus on. For one thing, Fire Emblem Engage has three difficulty levels, plus an option to enable permadeath for your units. Turning up the difficulty makes every choice in battle count more, so you’ll likely spend even more time if you really want to challenge yourself.

Fire Emblem Engage is also packed with optional content that could easily double your playtime if you engage with it all. Each of the recruitable Emblems — characters from previous Fire Emblem games — has their own optional chapter called a Paralogue, which features a battle inspired by the game they debuted in. Some Paralogues are among the best battles in the entire game, so they’re worth checking out.

Not long into Fire Emblem Engage, you’ll unlock the Tower of Trials, which offers three additional types of battles. The Tower of Trials is totally optional, but you can earn rewards to help power up your characters, plus the battles are a change of pace from combat in the main story. They’re also worth checking out and can add a huge number of hours to the game overall.

How many chapters are in Fire Emblem Engage?

Fire Emblem Engage is split into 26 chapters, each of which has one or two battles and a varying amount of story development. The first few chapters go by quickly, but toward the end, a single battle can easily stretch over an hour, so the chapters get longer accordingly. Any time you’re not in a story battle, you can spend as long as you’d like on your base or playing through optional combat challenges, so how long each chapter takes to complete is really up to you.

Does Fire Emblem Engage have a post-game or New Game Plus?

As of writing, Fire Emblem Engage doesn’t have a traditional New Game Plus or post-game, though that could change with post-launch updates and DLC.

Loading a save after beating the final battle will send you back to your home base, where you can replay the last chapter or finish up leftover any side content. New skirmishes are continually added to the map and the Tower of Trials remains available, so you’ll never run out of things to do entirely. For beating the game, you’ll be awarded a handful of upgrade materials to power up your units and equipment. The only major change is the addition of higher difficulty levels for Relay Trials, a two-player online mode available at the Tower of Trials.