Aside from this being hands down the funniest way to kick off a direct ever, what are yalls thoughts on this?
I am unironically really hyped for this. I think they really got inspired by Age of Calamity's success, after it became the best selling game in the history of the Warriors franchise merely a week after release, and they had to keep the train going. I think there's actually some decent potential here. Like AoC, this is focusing on a single entry in the target series, so instead of trying to make a coherent plot out of a mishmash of several games, they can focus on expanding the lore of just one. I believe AoC's story benefitted greatly from that kind of focus when compared to HW, and I am hoping for the same to be true here.
As far as gameplay goes, the first FEW was really underwhelming and it had a laughable amount of content. I pray they learned from AoC in this department as well, since that was a massive step up from HW in almost every possible way. All I can really ask is that the gameplay and content is at least as good as AoC's and the story is on par with Verdant Wind or Azure Moon. The story here feels as though it could become a 5th route, although it's too soon to say for sure. (or 6th route if you want to count Cindered Shadows as a whole route.)
I am eagerly awaiting future trailers.