Fire Emblem: Three Houses has removed the Weapon Triangle, the rock-paper-scissors system that has long underpinned the tactical role-playing series.
Sword beats axe. Axe beats lance. Lance beats sword. It was simple, but, according to game director Toshiyuki Kusakihara, they came to realize that it was unrealistic.
His example was that a less experienced axe wielder could defeat a more advanced lance user, which resulted in the decision to remove it in the new Nintendo Switch game.
“We think that the weapon triangle is somewhat of a stylized system, it isn’t really realistic,” Kusakihara explained to GameSpot.
“If you have a situation where a novice axe user takes down an advanced lance user, well, that makes sense? Probably not. So, we wanted to make something that comes across as more realistic to warfare and have players develop their weapons skills individually.
“We wanted to center on developing the skills for these characters, and also give them a lot more freedom in terms of how they develop. So we’re really creating a weapon system that is less restrictive than our previous games.”
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is now available exclusively for Nintendo Switch worldwide.
