Fire Emblem: Three Houses is an ambitious and unique take on the long running franchise. As it turns out, that's due in part to the development team from Koei Tecmo having a majority stake in the game.

A new interview translated from Famitsu magazine reveals that only a small team from the usual Fire Emblem devs, Intelligent Systems, was provided and the rest of the talent came from Koei Tecmo:

So this game marks a joint-development with Koei Tecmo games, in the same vein as Fire Emblem Warriors.

Kusakihara: Yes, FE Warriors had a lot to do with our decision to work with Koei Tecmo on this one.

Yokota: We decided that we wanted to release a Fire Emblem game on Nintendo Switch by the end of 2019 at the latest. However, it was looking like regular development was going to take some extra time, so we looked into getting another developer in the mix in order to shorten the length of production. At pretty much that exact same time, Koei Tecmo was making FE Warriors for us, and as a result of consulting with Mr. Hayashi (head of Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja), we ended up asking the Kou Shibusawa team to help out. That’s how things went.

Kusakihara: Speaking of the Kou Shibusawa team, they’re well-renowned for making SRPGs – they’re the best of the best. We knew it’d be great if we could get them on board, so we started hashing plans out again. It was only after we decided to work with the Kou Shibusawa team that we considered their sense of world-building with three balanced kingdoms.

That’s interesting. The setting in Three Houses where three different kingdoms are at war is certainly like Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Kusakihara: In regards to staffing, Intelligent Systems provided Koei Tecmo with a minimum crew of several designers, a music composer, and an adviser to the programmers – not including myself, of course. We then left Koei Tecmo in charge of basic game development.

If you check the official credits for the title (courtesy of Youtuber Anime AMV), there are a total of 17 people from Intelligent Systems, the rest from Koei Tecmo:

The interview also goes into more details concerning the game itself, such as various influences for the setting, mechanics, expansion pack, and more. Check out the full interview here.

Nintendo released new trailers and a beautiful piece of official artwork to celebrate the launch of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The game also has an Expansion Pass and Amiibo and online features. The game will receive a free update later on which will add Lunatic Mode. You can order the standard version here and the limited edition set here.