Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave DLC is getting backlash for its $35 price.

In 2027, it will add 4 more playable routes. Some people wonder why we have to pay extra for this huge plot extension when it should be included in the base game.

It feels like we're buying a new game, or paying more later, to get what seems like the rest of the story. But that is the problem with Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave: its planned DLC has drawn criticism for the $35 price tag and for including content that should have been in the game at launch.

The expansion launched in three waves, but they weren't equally weighted—the first two focused mainly on small updates like new weapons and customization options. The third wave, arriving in 2027, is when things become interesting. It will add four new ways to play, giving gamers a good reason to return.

In a strategy RPG like Fire Emblem, four new routes may mean much more than a few extra missions. They could add more characters. They could add different narratives. They could add more incentives to play. Sources say the devs planned a more diverse array of characters in the main game than what ended up in it.

This has led to speculation that the game's future growth will bring it closer to what the creators had planned from the start. And that's when the trouble begins. Fans question the $35 price. The Fire Emblem community has some issues with the $35 DLC price. Depending on the base game and the edition you pick, those who want the full experience might have to spend upwards of $100 in total today.

Some backers worry about more than the expansion's cost.

Paid DLC has existed for years, and a major expansion could easily justify the extra cost. The bigger concern is the content being delivered. A major chunk of the experience could be four playable routes. If those are directly tied to the game's core, it's understandable that some would wonder why they weren't included in the first place.

Was the material cut to fit a deadline, or was it always meant to be sold separately? No verifiable evidence suggests the creators held back completed material to charge people an additional $35. But there is plenty of room for debate about the timing and scale of the expansion.

For fans who have already paid full price, it could feel like a prompt to open their wallets again to get the experience they thought they were paying for. Gaming Industry Problem.  This issue did not just pop up out of nowhere. Selling extra material has existed for decades, but it really took off in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 eras.

Publishers often advertised season passes before games even existed, letting them sell access to future content before it was available. Players gradually accepted the paradigm, and publishers built on it. Launch cost no longer tells the whole story these days. Of course, expansions, character packs, cosmetics, and other add-ons can add up quickly in cost —you get it all.

That doesn't mean every DLC release is a bad deal, though.

Some expansions feature excellent material, giving gamers a reason to come back months after finishing the original game. The problem is when the extra stuff doesn't feel like an alternate trip, but instead like something that should have been part of the main experience. Fortune's Weave has plopped right down in the middle of that feud. The four extra routes are nice additions, but their significance has made the price a bit harder for some fans to swallow. 

Finally, the question isn't whether developers should charge for extensions. It's whether users are buying a game and getting a full experience from launch. The last DLC wave is not planned until 2027, so fans will have to wait to see how much it adds to the tale. But if it takes four new routes to provide the developers' original idea, should players really have to shell out an extra $35 to experience it?