Fire Emblem Three Houses: How to Romance Characters
This is our guide covering Fire Emblem Three Houses romance options, detailing how to romance Edelgard, and more.
There are romance options in Fire Emblem Three Houses, but don't expect it to play a huge role in the game. In this guide covering all the Fire Emblem Three Houses romance options, we'll be going over romancing any character in the game as either male or female Byleth, including how to romance Edelgard, and more.
How to Romance Characters
When you start out Fire Emblem Three Houses, the romance aspect of the game isn't made immediately obvious. This is because you're a teacher to all your students, so it wouldn't really be appropriate for you to romance your students, at all. You'll need to wait until the latter half of Fire Emblem Three Houses for the romance aspect to kick in, when the time skip takes place until 5 years in the future.
In order to woo someone, they first need to be in your house by the time the time skip in Three Houses takes place. We'd estimate this takes place roughly 25 hours into the game, and you can head over to our Fire Emblem Three Houses recruitment guide if you want to get any particular character into your house so you can romance them later on.
After the time skip takes place, you need to make sure your support level with your potential partner has leveled up to rank S. Every time you fight alongside someone in battle, or engage with them in an activity in the Monastery like sharing a meal or choir practice, your support points with them will increase.
Unfortunately, there's no meter on your progress to attaining the next support level with a character. So you'll have to keep rinsing and repeating activities and battles with a character to advance their support level with Byleth all the way to rank S.
Then, at the very end of Fire Emblem Three Houses, you'll be asked to pick a single romance partner. This is your sole opportunity to engage in romance with another character, and basically affects the epilogue of the game for Byleth, depending on who you choose to propose to. This can be popular Fire Emblem Three Houses character, Edelgard, if you wish. Just below, we've compiled a list of all the characters that male and female Byleth can romance.
Male Byleth Options
Before we delve into the finer details of Fire Emblem Three Houses romance, you can find a list below of all the romance characters available. Firstly, we'll be detailing all the romance characters available to male Byleth in Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
- Edelgard (Black Eagles only)
- Mercedes
- Annette
- Ingrid
- Bernadetta
- Dorothea
- Petra
- Lysithea
- Marianne
- Hilda
- Leonie
- Flayn
- Manuela
- Alois
- Shamir
Female Byleth Options
And now in the list below, you can find all the Fire Emblem Three Houses romance options for female Byleth. Note that these options are different from those available to male Byleth, so for example, only the female version of Byleth can romance Claude and Dimitri.
- Claude (Golden Deer only)
- Edelgard (Black Eagles only)
- Dimitri (Blue Lions only)
- Hubert
- Ferdinand
- Linhardt
- Caspar
- Dorothea
- Sylvain
- Ignatz
- Felix
- Ashe
- Mercedes
- Lorenz
- Raphael
- Seteth
- Hanneman
- Alois
Gay/Same Sex Romance Options
You might notice in the list above that Fire Emblem Three Houses only has one gay romance option for male Byleth: Alois. However, we think it appropriate to warn hopeful players that there is a rather large bait and switch with this romance option, unfortunately.
If male Byleth elects to romance Alois at the end of Fire Emblem Three Houses, after attaining support rank S with the character, you'd think that they'd spend the rest of their lives happy together, right? Wrong, because the game actually has Byleth engaged to a random female character that Alois knows instead, and Byleth and Alois remain merely friends.
This is really disappointing from Intelligent Systems. Although the female version of Byleth can romance other female characters like Edelgard and Dorothea, male Byleth's sole gay romance option is not what it seems, at all. As such, there are zero gay romance options for male Byleth in Fire Emblem Three Houses.
Support Levels Explained
So if you're aiming to get a character's support level with Byleth up to rank S, what are the best ways to undertake this? One obvious option is to present them with gifts whenever you're exploring the Monastery in Three Houses. You'll come across all sorts of gift items that are simply lying around on the ground, and you can then take these items to a character and present them as a gift, boosting their support level with Byleth.
Another option for boosting support levels is to fight alongside a character in battle. If, for example, Byleth wants to romance Edelgard, you might want to strategically place them alongside one another in battle. This way, whenever either Byleth or Edelgard are attacked or attack a foe, the support level between both characters will increase.
You should definitely undertake activities in the Monastery with someone you want to romance. An excellent idea is to engage with a character in activities like choir practice and sharing a meal in the dining hall, as this is the best opportunity to boost your support level with a character in Fire Emblem Three Houses.
There’s plenty more Fire Emblem Three Houses guides right here on USG. For a look at Activity Points, head here. There’s also our guide on Unlocking Budding Talents.