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Fire Emblem: Fates has its predecessor to thank for its existence.

In a recent edition of Iwata asks (via Destructoid), Nintendo President Satoru Iwata spoke with some of the people involved in the development of Fire Emblem: Fates.

It was during this conversation that Nintendo producer Hitoshi Yamagami revealed Fire Emblem: Awakening was actually supposed to be the final game in the franchise.

"To be honest, when we made Awakening, we intended it to be the last in the series," Yamagami said, adding that Nintendo's then senior managing director and head of sales Shinji Hatano presented them with news of the franchise's dwindling numbers.

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"Hatano-san, who was working as the head of the sales department, he said 'The Emblem series isn't making the numbers, so this is going to be the last one.' And the [development team] members said 'This is going to be the last one, so let's put in everything we want so we don't have any regrets.' Then we had a big list of different things, 'I want to do this' and 'I wanna do this,' and the result was Awakening."

According to Iwata, Awakening went on to become "the bestselling game in the Emblem series overseas." This success, Yamagami noted, eventually led to Hatano asking about their plans for a new installment.

"We asked, 'Huh? I thought this was supposed to be the last one?' And [Hatano] said, 'Of course. That's how Sales works. If something sells, we start asking for the next installment.' So we talked to everyone at Intelligent Systems and said, 'So, now we have to hurry up and make the next one.'"

Nintendo announced during E3 2015 that Fire Emblem Fates (known as Fire Emblem If in Japan) will release on the Nintendo 3DS in 2016. Fates also recently made headlines by becoming the first in the Fire Emblem series to allow for same-sex marriages.

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Cassidee is a freelance writer and the co-host of a podcast about freelancing. You can chat with her about that and all other things geeky on Twitter.