Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Fire Emblem: Three Houses combines the series' tactical turn-based battles with a school-life simulation at the monastery academy of Garreg Mach, where the player, in the role of professor Byleth, takes charge of one of three student houses – the Blue Lions, the Black Eagles, or the Golden Deer, each representing a different faction of the continent of Fódlan. The game's structure follows a calendar: each month has its own preparation phase and ends with a mandatory mission, so the player must constantly choose what to spend their limited time on, including deciding which students to try to recruit into their own house.

Off the battlefield, the player spends time teaching subjects, building relationships with students through conversations and tea parties, fishing, cooking, and developing their own and their students' skills, which directly affects their combat abilities and the possibility of advancing to higher classes. The class system is significantly more flexible than in older installments – almost any character can head down almost any path if the player devotes enough teaching to them. The battles themselves stay true to the series – permanent unit death, a rock-paper-scissors duel between weapon types, and expansive maps with terrain advantages – but they're enriched by magical Combat Arts, calling in reinforcement squads, and the ability to command your own professor as a full-fledged combat unit. For less patient players, there's also a turn-rewind mode available.

A crucial element is the political story: midway through the game, a large-scale war breaks out between the three factions, and the choice of house from the first half of the game fundamentally changes the narrative, allies, and enemies in the second part, giving the game enormous replayability and leading to beloved students from the first playthrough appearing as enemies in the second. The Cindered Shadows expansion added a fourth hidden faction. Thanks to the depth of its characters, the moral ambiguity of the factions, and its elaborate relationship system, Three Houses is considered one of the most ambitious and best-written installments in the entire series, and also a title that opened the series to an entirely new audience.