In a few days, only 3 months will remain before Fire Emblem: Three Houses is released worldwide. Except for two trailers, Nintendo has been pretty quiet about the game, which is normal. But it looks like the floodgates might be opening soon…

Famitsu, one of the most notable Japanese gaming magazines, has teased brand new information for Three Houses in their 16th May 2019 issue, which comes out on 25th April 2019. They also mentioned that they’ll have more information about the game in future issues.

Featured is a preview image for presumably the first double page spread. Unfortunately, these images are always tiny and no amount of CSI enhancement can reveal what most of the page actually says. We’ll just have to wait until the issue is actually out.

That said, we can clearly see the official artworks of male and female Byleth, Sothis, Dimitri, Edelgard and Claude, which are all completely new. There also seems to be information for each character’s Japanese voice actor (including Jeralt’s).

Another thing: male and female Byleth’s names are spelled slightly differently in Japanese: Bereto (male) versus Beresu (female). However, both seem to be valid spellings of “Byleth”. Perhaps in the English version, the female version might be called Bylethe or something?

On a related note, it’s really hard to see, but I believe there’s a note above both male and female Byleth’s names, which says “default name”. This strongly implies that the player can choose Byleth’s name, similar to the Avatar in previous games.

Additionally, Famitsu were kind enough to provide two decent-sized screenshots.

The first shows Sothis speaking to Byleth, possibly shortly after their first meeting. It seems Sothis has amnesia; she claims that she doesn’t remember anything except her name. Hmm, did she lose her memory because of trauma, because it was sealed… or something even more ominous?

Update: My mistake. I was tired and originally misread the last symbol in her dialogue, which completely altered the meaning.

Related, Sothis’s official artwork shows her holding the same golden sword that the two Byleths are wielding in their artwork. Could she be the one who gives the sword to Byleth? For reference, this sword is also seen in the hands of the peaceful-looking woman in the first trailer, as well as the warrior-like man.

Meanwhile the second screenshot is slightly less interesting. It shows a battle map with Byleth leading the Black Eagles including Edelgard, Ferdinand and Petra. Hmm, will we ever see the other two houses…? There are a lot of enemy axe users too–at least 5 visible.

Update: Oddly, Edelgard has 4 Movement here, whereas she had 5 Movement during the first trailer. In both situations, she seems to be in the same Noble class. The terrain is also the same. Maybe they changed the Movement or Edelgard can gain a skill that increases Movement?

Besides what we can see, Famitsu has promised details about the story and world setting (which will probably cover the legend of the Goddess and the history of Fódlan–as well as its three nations). Plus info about the battle and academy gameplay (this may repeat information from the Nintendo Direct trailer).

That’s all for now. As mentioned, the issue will land on 25th April, but there’s a good chance that some details (not pictures) will leak a few days beforehand–probably the voice actors and any important new gameplay information. In any case, we’ll try and cover the new info as soon as we can!