Today Nihon Falcom revealed that it's preparing to launch the next game in the popular Trails JRPG series, which has also passed a sales milestone.
According to the press release accompanying the beloved developer's financial results for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, the new game of the Trails series will be released in the current fiscal year.
This means that it'll launch by September 30, 2024 (in Japan, of course), which matches the Falcom's usual modus operandi.
On top of that, we learn that the series has cumulatively sold 7 million copies worldwide.
We also hear that Nihon Falcom intends to promote multiplatform development of games aimed at the worldwide market for home consoles, PC, and smartphones. This includes both the Trails and Ys series, and the creation of new IP.
Incidentally, a JRPG for smartphones tied in with the anime The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Northern War is also coming by September 2024.
Speaking of Nihon Falcom's financial results sales for the fiscal year that ended on September 30, 2023 were 2,473 million yen (down 2.4% year-on.year), while operating income was 1,328 million yen (down 9.0% year-on-year),
Sales for the Product Division (which focuses on the Japanese domestic market) were 645 million yen (+0.8% year-on-year). On the other hand, sales for the Licensing Division (which focuses on the worldwide market) were 1,828 million yen (down 3.4% year-on-year).
In the meanwhile, western fans can finally expect The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak (originally known as "Kuro no Kiseki") to arrive on the western market in Summer 2024 for PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC, three years late compared to Japan and Asia.
On the other hand, we don't know when we'll get its sequel that has already launched in Japan in 2022. The same can be said for Ys X: Nordics, which just launched in Japan and Asia on September 28.
In the meanwhile, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3 and 4 will land on PS5 on February 16, 2024.
