Which Fire Emblem game first featured a female protagonist?

Fire Emblem Gaiden was the first Fire Emblem game to feature a female protagonist, Celica.

Released in Japan for the Famicom in 1992, Gaiden tells its story through two linked campaigns. Alm leads one army across Valentia, while Celica—an exiled Zofian princess and Mila’s devoted priestess—leads the other. Their separate journeys eventually converge as they confront the continent’s political and religious crisis.

Celica is more than a supporting royal character. She is directly playable, commands her own party, has her own chapters and objectives, and receives a distinctive promotion from Priestess to Princess. This dual-protagonist structure was a major departure from the first Fire Emblem, which centered on Marth despite having several playable women.

The answer is sometimes obscured by later games featuring female avatars or lords, such as Fates, Three Houses, and Engage. Those characters made player choice or female leadership more prominent, but they appeared decades after Celica. Gaiden was remade worldwide in 2017 as Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.