Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes celebrates ninth anniversary and over $1.2bn in revenue

• Fire Emblem Heroes launched globally on February 2nd, 2017.
• In nine years, the gacha title has generated more than $1.2 billion through effective mechanics and monitoring fan favourites.

Nintendo’s most lucrative mobile game Fire Emblem Heroes is celebrating its ninth anniversary with dozens of gacha banners, limited-time events and advertisements for a spinoff title.

Fire Emblem Heroes is Nintendo’s only mobile game to have surpassed $1 billion in lifetime player spending. The latest AppMagic estimates suggest it has exceeded $1.2bn since its release on February 2nd, 2017, though this does reflect significant slowdown from its spending peak.

Half of Heroes’ lifetime revenue has come from its home country Japan, while the US has contributed 36% of spending. Canada ranks third with 3%.

Nine years of revenue

Fire Emblem Heroes’ first year remains its most lucrative, having generated $265.1 million in its first 365 days. Its launch year also contained its most successful single day at $3.3m on February 10th, 2017.

Annual spending fell by 12% in year two to $233.7m. A more dramatic 34% decline followed in year three to $155.1m.

Heroes’ only annual spending rise followed in year four, up marginally to $155.4m, during a time when many mobile games boomed from the pandemic and global lockdowns. The year commenced in February 2020 with the introduction of FEH Pass, a battle pass-like subscription service which awards paying players with exclusive character art, bonus items, and quality of life perks each month.

This also marked Heroes’ first full year following 2019’s successful Switch title Fire Emblem: Three Houses, which achieved the series’ highest sales figures and remains the best-selling strategy RPG of all time, at over 4m units.

Though estimates don’t indicate any notable downloads surge at this time, Three Houses characters were featured prominently in Heroes’ gacha during the year, likely driving player spending. August 2020, when main characters Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude appeared in Heroes’ major gacha event Choose Your Legends, remains the game’s most lucrative month of the past seven years.

Following year four, annual player spending has continued to decline Y/Y, most recently generating $47.9m in year nine. This was just 18% of first-year earnings.

Yet, despite this far fall from its initial heights, Heroes remains Nintendo’s only 10-figure mobile game - far ahead of bigger brands behind titles like Mario Kart Tour, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Super Mario Run.

Heroes also continues to outearn the much newer mobile release Fire Emblem Shadows, a real-time social deduction game that’s struggled to make an impact. Over its first four months, this spinoff has made just $516,000.

Unlike Heroes, Shadows doesn’t leverage gacha mechanics to incentivise spending on new characters, but rather opts for a battle pass, allowing paid access to one newcomer per month ahead of their free-to-play release.

A long legacy and new beginnings

Evidently, Fire Emblem Heroes’ longevity has come through successful utilisation of mobile mechanics and monetisation methods, not just brand identity. Its ninth anniversary has arrived shortly after its major version update to version 10, released in December 2025, setting the scene for the year ahead with the introduction of a new story campaign: Book 10.

Annual major version updates are seen across many of mobile’s biggest gachas, including Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves.

Heroes’ ninth anniversary has arrived during version 10.1, promising various log-in bonuses and map completion rewards to capitalise on celebratory gacha events. Daily challenges will appear for the next fortnight, while 66 old gacha banners will return over the next 20 days.

Today’s FEH Channel, released on YouTube to update players on the latest content, also revealed the winners of Choose Your Legends 10. Another annual event, Choose Your Legends allowed players to vote in January for characters to receive alts in 2026, with the four winners guaranteed to appear this summer.

Tsubasa from Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE won with 21,381 votes. Despite Heroes’ declining revenue, this was the most votes for a single character since 2022’s Choose Your Legends 6.

Still, this was far from Choose Your Legends 1 winner Lyn’s 49,917 votes or Edelgard’s 74,617 votes in Choose Your Legends 4.

January 2026 also saw Heroes players vote in a special Shadows Cup, a cross-promotional event likely aiming to stir up intrigue in Fire Emblem Shadows, but still falling back on Heroes' playerbase and revenue potential. The event took place before Choose Your Legends and saw Heroes players vote on legacy characters to receive alts in a Shadows style - where fan favourites don new, beastly forms.

Notably, winners of the Shadows Cup are only promised to appear in Heroes, inspired by Shadows whether or not they ever appear in the spinoff itself. The FEH Channel confirmed Edelgard won this event too, reiterating her popularity to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems six years on from her Choose Your Legends win.

Even as it approaches a decade in age, Fire Emblem Heroes continues to monitor fan favourites, regularly release new characters and generate millions of dollars between its gacha and subscription service.

With Three Houses’ successor Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave set to release on the Switch 2 this year, Heroes will soon have even more characters to monetise.