Fire Emblem: Three Houses

On January 18, 2017, the then-unnamed sixteenth Fire Emblem game was announced briefly in a special Fire Emblem Nintendo Direct without any footage, and with an estimated release in 2018. On June 12, 2018, the first gameplay trailer debuted during the E3 2018 Nintendo Direct video presentation, and the game's title, Fire Emblem: Three Houses was revealed. The estimated release date was also updated to Spring 2019.

The E3 trailer revealed that the game will feature some manner of free-roaming exploration outside of combat, expanding on the My Castle portions of Fire Emblem Fates and the dungeons of Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. Cutscenes in the game are depicted in outlined CG animation, also much like Shadows of Valentia, giving off an illusion of hand-drawn 2D animation. The tactical gameplay, however, is depicted entirely with polygonal models, as in previous titles like Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.

During a Nintendo Direct on February 13, 2019. new information on Three Houses was released. The trailer stated that the central character Byleth will act as a teacher to one of the three houses of the Officers Academy. The plot will in part focus on Byleth's connection to a mysterious figure known as Sothis. The game introduces many new gameplay mechanics and features, as listed below. During the Nintendo Direct, it was also announced that the date for Three Houses was pushed to July 26, 2019. On July 17, 2019, Patrick Seitz announced he served as voice director of the English dub cast. Joe Zieja stated that principal voice recording for the English dub began as far back as Fall 2018 and was finished around January 2019.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses was developed with assistance from Koei Tecmo. The company had previously partnered with Intelligent Systems on Fire Emblem Warriors. Intelligent Systems staff focused on characters and story, while Koei Tecmo's Kou Shibusawa studio, the team behind the company's historical strategy games, performed the bulk of the development effort, with hands in programming, game design, and writing. The game was also developed in Koei Tecmo's internal proprietary engine frequently used for their Musou titles like Fire Emblem Warriors. The character designer for Three Houses is illustrator Chinatsu Kurahana. Sanzigen was in charge of animating the 3D cutscenes.

According to game director Toshiyuki Kusakihara, the premise was partially inspired by the friendship of Sigurd, Quan, and Eldigan from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. Their story of attending the Belhalla Royal Academy in their youth, only to have their friendship tested by war in adulthood was influential to Three Houses. In developing the game's multiple routes, the team started with creating Silver Snow first, and branched out from there.

Three Houses introduced many new gameplay mechanics and made changes to many established series elements. The game itself is not focused solely on a succession of battles interspersed with menus or a world map, but introduces a school setting which divides the gameplay into two distinct phases.

School Phase

The player will spend time with a portion of the playable cast as a professor, instructing them in the art of war and improving their combat capabilities. This allows the player to shape the playable cast in a manner of their own choosing through Tutoring, leading them down different weapon/unit type proficiencies and ultimately, different class paths when they take Certification Exams.

Players can freely roam Garreg Mach Monastery to interact with the cast of characters, as well as perform tasks and do various side activities to improve stats, form supports, and improve performance in combat. Though a player starts with the eight students from the house they choose to teach, they are able to recruit most students from other houses as well if they reach certain weapon rank, unit type, and/or stat levels. Other non-student characters may also be recruited by the player based on story progress and the player-character Byleth's level.

In a stark departure from prior Fire Emblem titles, character recruitment beyond the setting of the monastery and Officers Academy is extremely limited. Where most titles will present the player with new recruitable units spread evenly through the game, Three Houses presents all characters available for recruitment during the first half of the game's story. The player may recruit most characters from the houses that Byleth does not teach, as well as a select few additional characters including academy faculty, provided that Byleth meets the requirements for doing so. Any character that is not recruited prior to the timeskip at the game's midpoint becomes unavailable for the rest of the game. A select few characters have additional requirements that, if recruited in the first half, must be met for them to become playable again in the second half. There are also characters that, depending on the story route the player pursues, will join the player's force in the game's first half only to depart the player's force after a pivotal story event preceding the timeskip.

Combat Phase

Classic map battles featured in all past Fire Emblem games make a return but with many new revamped combat features, mainly involving the usage of Battalions as an additional battle tactic to boost allies or weaken enemies. Unlike previous games, each class is generally free to use any weapon they see fit. For example, Archers are allowed to use Swords and Axes. Weapon proficiency not only provides bonuses to characters when using weapons they have more experience with but also improves the odds of passing Certification Exams for classes proficient in a given weapon type.

The Magic system in Three Houses shares some functional similarities with Fire Emblem: Gaiden and its remake Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. As characters level up their Reason and Faith skills, they learn magic spells, which they are free to use so long as they are a class capable of doing so. Each individual spell has a set number of usages per battle, and does not require equipping a Tome or expending HP to cast, as in past games. All playable characters are capable of learning magic, but the lists of spells they are capable of learning varies between them.

The game takes place on the continent of Fódlan. The landmass is divided into three rival nations who are now at peace: the Adrestian Empire to the southwest, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus to the north, and the Leicester Alliance to the east. At the center of the continent is the Garreg Mach Monastery, a neutral territory home to both the Church of Seiros and the Officers Academy. The game's "Three Houses" refer to the three boarding houses of the academy, the Black Eagles, the Blue Lions, and the Golden Deer, each populated with students from the three main nations. Additionally, underneath Garreg Mach Monastery is a place for rejects of society called Abyss, and a house in name alone, the Ashen Wolves.

In ancient times, a war raged between the Church's titular founder Seiros and the "Liberation King" Nemesis, an era which also saw the establishment of the Empire. In the thousand years since then, the Kingdom split away from the Empire, then the Alliance declared its independence from both powers. A prolonged conflict ensued, with the Church being responsible for maintaining peace. Key to the nations of Fódlan are Crests, magical sigils passed down through families that play key roles in the continent's history and politics.

The game is set during two time periods. The first begins in Imperial Year 1180, during the characters' time as students at the Officers Academy. The story then jumps five years later to the time of a promised reunion between students, only for the three nations to now be seemingly at war with each other.