In celebration of the 15th anniversary of the release of Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC and the start of the Legend of Heroes: Trails series, developers Nihon Falcom recently hosted an anniversary panel where they looked back at the series rich history and gave some information on the upcoming titles they plan to release. Panelists at the event included Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo, journalists from Dengeki and Japanese voice actress Ai Nonoka.
Please note this article will contain minor spoilers for the Trails series up until this point.
In a look forward to the series future, it was confirmed that there are two Trails games currently in the works. One, which has been previously announced, is the first game in the next arc which will be taking place in the previously unexplored Eastern portion of the Zemuria continent, hinted to be in Zin Vathek’s birthplace of the Calvard Republic. A map of the entire continent, albeit partially obscured, was revealed for the first time at the event, showing the location of the Holy Nation of Alteria.
The second game in development is a spin-off of Trails of Cold Steel and is set to be the next game to release. Four characters were revealed to be featured in one or both of these games, Rixia, Scarlet, Wald and “someone from Nord Highlands who looks a lot like a younger Gaius.” Two additional characters were revealed on the cover for this month’s issue of Dengeki PlayStation, however, their identities have not been revealed at this time.
Two screenshots were also revealed, though neither says much about the potential plots or game development. However, Kondo confirmed that these are characters we’ve seen before and that the games’ graphics engine is going through a reworking which will increase the graphics quality for all future Trails games going forward.
Also touched on was the plans to port the “Evolution” versions of the Trails in the Sky trilogy, as well as the Crossbell duology, to PlayStation 4 as those have only ever been released on PS Vita. Kondo simply confirmed that further announcements related to these will be forthcoming.
Quick Take
The Crossbell games have never been localized in English, and it sounds like, according to the stream, that’s partially due to the PS Vita graphics and issues with porting that. Porting them to PS4 is one step in the direction of localizing them, and as the localization for Trails of Cold Steel IV hasn’t even been announced, it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting them anytime soon.I’m excited to see the Eastern part of Zemuria, and hopefully Calvard Republic – anyone else want to see Estelle’s reaction to a bus? – but from remarks in Cold Steel IV about the entire Eastern portion being in a state of collapse, the next arc will probably take a darker tone right off the bat, as opposed to Sky and Cold Steel starting out fairly lighthearted before shattering your heart with the weight of the universe.
Cold Steel spin-off? Could be good. Probably needs to wait for the English version of Cold Steel III and IV before we go making any judgments though. One request – more Olivier, please!
