Nintendo dropped a new trailer for Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, showing off the new looks for the Kingdom of Faerghus warriors. These characters are part of the Blue Lions house from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, led by the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus' Prince Dimitri. Blue Lions is one of the houses that the player can choose to lead and teach as Byleth in Three Houses, but Byleth seems to be taking on a more antagonistic role in Three Hopes.
The Blue Lions house is comprised of eight Faerghus citizens that the player can teach and train in Three Houses: the aforementioned Dimitri, Mercedes, Sylvain, Ashe, Dedue, Annette, Felix, and Ingrid. A major plot point of Three Houses' story involves a five-year time skip, after which all of these characters have grown from students into full-fledged warriors. This means that each of these characters, along with the students from the other two houses, already have two different looks in the game. This is already a topic that fans have loved to talk about since the release of Three Houses, debating on who got the best "post time-skip" look. While the exact time placement of Three Hopes is not confirmed, let alone whether or not it's canonical, it's theorized to take place sometime between the two time zones depicted in the original game.
The new trailer from Nintendo UK's YouTube channel shows off the new outfits and hairdos for each returning Blue Lions character, and fans are divided. Some are thrilled with the new looks, like Twitter user houjitsun, who approves of Ashe's hairstyle. Others, like taiwonton, were less pleased, and even edited some tweaks onto Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain to improve their bangs or their lack thereof. Two characters that fans seem unanimously delighted by are Dedue and Annette. Annette sports a cute new handkerchief paired with looped braids and bows, while Dedue has the gruff beginnings of a beard and a tidy braid weaved into his hair.
Some fans are taking these new haircuts as further evidence that the Three Hopes story takes place in the middle of the time skip. This is because some hairstyles, like Dedue and Dimitri's, seem to be on their way to matching their appearance after the skip. The other styles feel like older teens trying to look cool or rebellious, and thus are not quite adults yet. Some fans, however, are too busy reacting to the new styles to make any theories about them.
With the release of this trailer, it's easy to assume that in the future Nintendo will release similar Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes trailers that show off the characters from the other two houses, Black Eagles and Golden Deer. After the portrait reveals for the Blue Lions, fans are both excited and worried about how their favorites from the other two houses will look. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes will release for the Nintendo Switch on June 24th.
Source: Nintendo UK/Youtube, taiwonton/Twitter, houjitsun/Twitter