Every Major Video Game Franchise Returning In 2019

8. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Release Date: July 26th

Looking to combine the more real-time exploration aspects of Fire Emblem: Shadows of Valentia with standard, turn-based combat of yore, Three Houses marks the franchise's first consoles release in 12 years. Formerly at home on 3DS (and just about the perfect pick up n' play game, I might add), this will likely be many peoples' first "proper" Fire Emblem, as the handheld/mobile Fire Emblem: Heroes blew up across the first half of February.

Thankfully, Nintendo are shaking up quite a few base staples of gameplay, separating melee and magic attacks to change up your attacks even more, letting you trigger more cinematically-focused "Combat Arts" animations, and all-round enhancing production so this can sit alongside the XCOMs and Mutant: Year Zeros of this world.

Nintendo have really been putting the time into Fire Emblem as a property, too. As a company they're often lambasted for focusing too much on Mario, Zelda and their older roster of characters, but 2018's Super Smash Bros Ultimate featured a ton of Fire Emblem characters - almost as though we were being prepped for this upcoming release.

With the aforementioned work done on the 3DS and across the mobile market - and the fact the Switch is second only to the PS4 in popularity - it could finally be Fire Emblem's time to stand firm as the console strategy title.