If you’re a fan of Fire Emblem and love the vaunted weapon triangle balance, you may want to sit down for this next bit of news. Intelligent Systems has announced that Fire Emblem If for the Nintendo 3DS will be retooling its weapon triangle. It’s now swords and magic > axes and bows > lances and concealed weapons > swords and magic and so on in the upcoming turn based strategy/role playing game.

Confused? According to Gematsu, pulling an example from Famitsu, this new system means some stronger weapons will suffer penalties in certain ways. For example, Bronze Swords may have +10 Critical Evasion but be incapable of landing Critical Hits while Steel Swords offer -5 Evasion and chances for follow-up attacks. At the very least, the new system allows for a greater variety of advantages for Bow and Magic users against Lance and Axe users respectively.

Some new character types have also been introduced with the Maid and Butler. Like the Shinobi, they use dark weapons which can adversely affect enemy stats. Some of the new characters include Felicia, Joker, Gunther and Suzukaze who will feature in both the White Night and Dark Night versions of the game. Some characters like the Shinobi Kagerou and Saizou will only be available in the White Night version though.

Fire Emblem If releases on June 26th for 3DS with a 2016 release date in the West. Stay tuned for more information.

The upcoming Fire Emblem If will be introducing a few new changes to the established formula, along with a new difficulty setting to further ease the burden of losing units in battle.

According to Famitsu (via Siliconera), weapon durability will be removed completely, thus eliminating issues in previous games where players had to save their best equipment and spells by wasting inventory slots on other options.

Fire Emblem If will also add a new Phoenix Mode that further builds off of Casual Mode (which also makes its return). While the latter removes permanent death of units after a map is completed, the former revives any fallen units after every turn. It will be interesting to see how this works, especially if the player opts for the more difficult Nohr path.

It also seems that a new ability called Dragon Pulse will be added for some characters which can alter the foundation of a level entirely through earthquakes or crushing mountains.

Fire Emblem If is out on June 25th for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan. It will be out in 2016 for the West.

Nintendo had the latest episode in their Nintendo Direct webcast this morning, and they kicked it off with a bang, starting the presentation with the announcement of a brand new game for the Nintendo 3DS- a new Fire Emblem game, to follow up on 2013’s Fire Emblem Awakening.

The game looked to be using the same art as Awakening, and seems to be using the same engine as well, although the influence this time around seems to be medieval Japan as opposed to the western fantasy aesthetic that pervaded Awakening. Iwata confirmed that the game was being worked on by the same team as Awakening, with a brand new big name manga writer from Japan having been brought on board to help with the story (Awakening’s plotline was one of the few things about it that warranted criticism).

Apart from that, we really were not told much, although the trailer that we got looks awesome. Presumably, the new game (which is titled Fire Emblem If in Japan, although we have no official western title yet) will continue to build on the new mechanics that Fire Emblem Awakening brought to the series, such as marriage, the casual mode, and social simulation, while also bringing back features from older games, such as fog of war.

No matter what, though, we are just excited that this game exists- Fire Emblem Awakening was one of the best games of 2013, and two years later, still stands as one of the best games on the 3DS. With it having been a worldwide commercial success as well, it seems there will be a built in fanbase waiting eagerly for this follow up.

Stay tuned, because we will keep you posted.