This past weekend, Nintendo and Intelligent Systems announced a new subscription service for Fire Emblem Heroes, costing $9.49 a month. Suffice it to say, fans are not happy about it.

Fire Emblem Heroes, the mobile take on Nintendos long-running strategy series, just turned three years old. The game is celebrating the anniversary in all the usual ways: free in-game currency, summons, and challenge maps. But it seems the fanbase is far from thrilled. The sticking point? A subscription service called Feh Pass.
A Feh Pass subscription will cost $9.49 a month and will include a handful of new features, some expected, some not. Purely cosmetic skins for existing characters? A handful of bonus quests that can only be completed by subscribers? Sure, thats fine. But the Feh Pass goes a lot further than that, with statistical boosts awarded only to those who pay up. A handful of gameplay-impacting upgrades (mostly centered around boosted stats) will give subscribers a slight edge in competitive modes.
Beyond that, Nintendo and Intelligent systems are locking quality-of-life upgrades behind the subscription paywall. Two useful gameplay perks the ability to rewind time back one turn and Auto Start, which allows players to have the AI start multiple matches in a row will also only be available to subscribers.
Players on the Fire Emblem Heroes subreddithavent been bashful about sharing their disappointment over the games shift to a subscription model. The subreddit is now flooded with memes complaining about the new feature.
The shift to a subscription model follows in the footsteps of Mario Kart Tour, Nintendos mobile take on the popular racer. In that game, Nintendo charged $4.99 for access to an exclusive mode, challenges and bonus rewards. Nintendo also introduced a subscription service to Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, with similar quality-of-life functionality features locked away to subscribers.
Fire Emblem Heroes has been viewed as one of the more generous free-to-play mobile games, offering quite a bit of content, even to those who arent able to spend a dime. Over the past three years, the developers at Intelligent Systems have also earned a reputation for being willing to adapt, fixing the games faults with dozens of quality-of-life enhancements, for free, as a way to maintain the player base.
But this shift towards a $9.49-a-month model, which only rewards subscribers with gameplay and quality-of-life enhancements, seems like a major strategic shift and a disappointing turn for Fire Emblem Heroes.
Weve reached out to Nintendo for comment on the fan reaction to Feh Pass and will update this story if we hear back.