Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave's deadline for getting new characters on your side might loom ominously on the horizon, but the game is more flexible than it lets on. There are a few points of no return, but only one of them is irreversible: the one at the start of Act 3. The game doesn't outright tell you that there's no going back, though it does ask you to be quite sure you want to proceed before moving on.
There's a good reason for that. The second deadline is inflexible, and there's no going back afterward. Below, we break down when you won't be able to backtrack and the cutoff for recruiting new characters in Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave.
Update (Oct. 9): We updated this guide to include mention that Theodora's first part ends earlier than Dietrich's, Cai's, and Leda's. The first deadline you'll encounter is November 27. This is when Leda's, Dietrich's, and Cai's first part ends, and you have until the moment you start the final quest that day to recruit other characters.
Theodora's path ends early, however, on 10/24. The in-game quest descriptions don't acknowledge that and still tell you the deadline is November 27, but everything for Theodora wraps up on 10/24. However, it's not a firm deadline like in Three Houses.
After you clear that act, you can go back and replay any chapter in it. Replaying is helpful for recruiting other characters, training them differently, or completing paralogues, and there's no limit on how many times you can replay a chapter. There is a catch, though.
For the changes you make in your Act 1 replay to show up in later acts, you have to complete the rest of that Act 1 again. If your goal is recruiting a character you missed, and you're going to play a second (or third or fourth) route anyway, we don't recommend replaying a chapter just to recruit someone. Instead, pick them up on whoever's route you play next.
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