Fire Emblem Fates launched today in Japan with a feature that had somehow managed to remain hidden until today – online multiplayer.

Matches are available to be played as a five-on-five battle with your units coming from your game’s save file. Unlike previous games in the series that only allowed arena bouts, this time around there are full size maps to battle it out on.

The online portion of the game can be played with players on your friends list, random players, and even locally. Battles can also be altered with different rules that can limit or remove effects of various items, putting players of more equal footing if you’re not as well set up as your friend next door. One specific that does appear to be set in stone, however, is the lack of a fog of war, and a turn time limit of five minutes.

From the get go, players have access to five multiplayer maps; ‘Mountain Village’, ‘Opera House’, ‘Destroyed City’, Crumbled Fortress’, and ‘Palace’. Each map has a number of mechanics placed on it, like Dragon Veins and destructible objects.

Going even further, players can also use their ‘My Castle’ as a multiplayer map if they so choose.

Right now, Fates is set to release in the West some time next year. If you’re interested in more specifics, a poster on Serenes Forest put up a bunch of information, and you can view that here.