5 games to play if you liked Fire Emblem: Three Houses

5. X-Com 2 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Aesthetically,  it’s hard to think of two franchises more different than X-Com and Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem is high fantasy, and X-Com is hardcore sci-fi with no time for tea parties. It doesn’t feature the personal relationship aspects that you would find in Fire Emblem or a particularly deep story (bad aliens invade, kill aliens) but the two series have more in common than you would think.

Both are of course turn-based strategy game series, but the biggest thing is for those who are fans of things like the permadeath in Fire Emblem, X-Com also has this. There is a considerable amount of customization involved in building your squad and really paying attention to how to best use their strengths is key to winning battles.

Your soldiers can and probably will die. Your individual soldiers don’t have distinct personalities as they do in Fire Emblem, but it can still feel just as brutal to lose your best squad members to a bad decision or even just an unfortunate turn of luck you really had no control over and then have to try and carry on without them.

Essentially, X-Com 2 is a pretty ideal option if you liked the turn-based strategy and hard consequences present in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but weren’t all that keen on the more social aspects of the game.