This short guide to Fire Emblem’s latest expansion is still in development…

Fire Emblem: Three Houses‘ latest DLC, Cindered Shadow, is now out in the wilds and available on the Nintendo Eshop. But what is it, really? Is it a side story? Is it part of the main campaign?

Well, the answer’s pretty easy: it’s a side story you can play right off the bat once you’re on the menu screen and once you downloaded the DLC. Let’s break it down:

Length

Cindered Shadows‘ side story campaign is 8 to 10 hours long. This DLC expects you to know the ins and outs of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, because these missions are tough as hell and you have limited funds for upgrades and purchases.

Luckily, some of these missions will let you use mainstays like Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, Lindhardt, Ashe, and lazy bitch Hilda.

New Characters

Cindered Shadows bring in four new characters from the Ashen Wolves house: female mage Constance, muscle-bound Balthus, androgynous sword-wielder Yuri, and the nihilistic Valkyrie Hapi. You will control these four for all of the Side Story campaign. Once you’ve completed Chapter 1 of the side story, you can then recruit them in the main game and will be at level 20.

Whether you’re just beginning or midway, you can recruit the four of them like you would any student in the monastery.

New Classes

Cindered Shadows adds four classes to the game: the Dark Flier, the War Cleric, the Trickster, and the Valkyrie.

The Dark Flier is an aerial class that casts magic and use swords. It’s designed to kill mages, as it gets a +3 bonus to its stats if it’s hit with a magic spell.

The War Cleric is a warrior class that uses axes and fists. They have a Combat Art called Distant Hit that hits enemies with a magic attack from 1-2 range.

The Trickster is a jack-of-all-trades class that uses swords, Faith, and Reason spells. They also have a Trick skill that lets them swap positions with any ally within five spaces of them.

The Valkyrie is a Faith and Reason female-only spellcaster on a horse. Their Reason spells have longer range compared to other classes.

To get these classes, you’ll need to use an Abyssian Exam Pass. That item will also be available after Chapter 1 of the side story campaign.