Trails (series)

• 1. A Life's Work

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  Trails is a series of science fantasy role-playing games from the Japanese studio Nihon Falcom, and its producer Toshihiro Kondo calls it his life's work. Falcom set out to build the most ambitious story the medium had seen. Thirteen main entries have appeared since 2004, and the studio expects the series to end with its final entry by 2032. That is a long road for a single narrative. How does a story keep its shape across so many games? What world could hold it, and who gets to see it? Why did English-speaking players wait so long to find out? The answers begin with a game that was never supposed to start a franchise.

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• 2. Zemuria

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  The year 2004 brought The Legend of Heroes VI: Trails in the Sky, the sixth entry in Falcom's long-running Legend of Heroes line. Despite the numbering, it had no narrative link to the earlier games. Fans and the studio came to treat it as a franchise of its own. The games take place within a few years of one another and follow one overarching narrative, with events in some entries spilling into others. Falcom builds them on its own engines, called the Falcom Developer Kit. The exception is Sony's PhyreEngine, which powers the Trails of Cold Steel games and Trails into Reverie. Anime influence runs through the series, which leans on many of its familiar character types and tropes.

  The setting is the continent of Zemuria, home to the Liberl Kingdom, the city-state of Crossbell, the Erebonian Empire and the Calvard Republic. Among its institutions are the Bracer's Guild, the Septian Church and a secret society named Ouroboros. The story unfolds half a century after the discovery of orbal energy, a counterpart to electricity. Devices called Orbments run on it, from household appliances to mecha and other heavy machinery. Orbal energy also lets people cast magic-like arts in seven elemental forms. Politics gives the world its weight, since the narrative takes up imperialism, classism and immigration.

  Zemuria also stands out for how many people live in it. Nearly every non-playable character carries a name, which is unusual for role-playing games. Most of them receive their own character arc, some larger and some smaller, with a few tied closely to the main plot. A player who returns to a town between chapters is expected to notice who has changed.

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• 3. Grid Combat

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  Most enemies in Trails are visible on the overworld, so the series has no random encounters. Battles play out on a large grid, where each character can move only a set number of squares or use a single ability per turn. A timeline on screen lists the turn order, and certain abilities can rearrange it. Beyond basic attacks and items, every character has two kinds of special ability, Crafts and Arts.

  Crafts belong to individual characters and are usually unlocked or strengthened as they level up. Each character also has an S-Craft, an ultimate move fueled by a meter that fills as they deal and take damage. Once the meter is full, the player can trigger it at any moment and skip past the turn order. The result might be a huge burst of damage, or healing and buffs for the party.

  Arts are the magic-like spells, powerful but slow to cast. They belong to no particular character or monster. Instead, the type and arrangement of Quartz, items comparable to Materia in Final Fantasy VII, decide which Arts a character can use.

  New entries tend to add something. Trails of Cold Steel introduced social events reminiscent of the Persona games. Trails Through Daybreak offered an optional action-based combat system. The next question is what these battles are fought for.

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• 4. Four Arcs

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  Estelle Bright and her adopted brother Joshua open the series in Trails in the Sky, released in Japan in 2004 for Windows and in 2006 for the PlayStation Portable. As members of the Bracer's Guild, a civilian peacekeeping and monster-hunting organization, they travel across the Liberl Kingdom. Trails in the Sky SC continued the plot in 2006 on Windows and in 2007 on the PSP. The third game, Trails in the Sky the 3rd, reached Japan in 2007 and the PSP in 2008. It follows Septian Church agent Kevin Graham into an otherworldly dimension called Phantasma, alongside many familiar characters. It also offers backstory vignettes and hints at plot elements explored in later arcs. A 3D remake, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, came out worldwide in 2025, and a remake of the sequel is set for 2026.

  Crossbell, a city-state wedged between the great powers of Erebonia and Calvard, anchors the second arc. Rookie police investigator Lloyd Bannings joins the Special Support Section with Elie McDowell, Randy Orlando and Tio Plato. They defend the city from crime and from the geopolitical pressure hanging over it. Trails from Zero reached the PSP in Japan in 2010, and Trails to Azure followed in 2011.

  In 2013, Trails of Cold Steel arrived on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in Japan. It follows Rean Schwarzer and Class VII, a specialized group of students at Thors Military Academy in the Erebonian Empire. Cold Steel II continued directly in 2014. In the third and fourth games, released in 2017 and 2018, Rean becomes an instructor leading a new Class VII at a branch campus of Thors. Trails into Reverie, in 2020, serves as an epilogue to both the Crossbell and Erebonia arcs. It follows Rean, Lloyd and a masked figure known as C.

  The Calvard arc is considered the start of the series' second half. Trails Through Daybreak, released in Japan on the PlayStation 4 in 2021, follows Van Arkride, a Spriggan who works as part detective and part bounty hunter. Agnes Claudel, a high schooler, hires him to find eight artifacts that hold the key to an apocalyptic mystery. Trails Through Daybreak II reached Japan in September 2022, and Trails Beyond the Horizon followed in September 2024.

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• 5. Crossing the Ocean

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  For most of the 2000s, Trails existed only in Asia. English versions arrived in the 2010s, published first by Xseed Games and later by NIS America. Xseed acquired the rights to the Trails in the Sky trilogy in 2010. The first game was finished in 2011, yet the second and third did not appear until the mid-2010s. Communication with Falcom was slow, and the translators suffered burnout from the sheer size of the scripts. The first game alone held over 1.5 million Japanese characters.

  The Crossbell duology waited even longer. NIS America took over the series' English localization in 2019, and Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure came out in 2022 and 2023 for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Windows. Unlike the other English releases, they have no English voice acting. Players get English subtitles over the Japanese audio.

  Xseed also released Cold Steel and Cold Steel II in English, in 2015 and 2016. NIS America handled Cold Steel III in 2019, Cold Steel IV in 2020 and Trails into Reverie in 2023. In Japan, a box set with all five Erebonia-arc games came out for the PlayStation 4 in July 2022.

  NIS America brought Trails Through Daybreak to English players in July 2024, along with a Nintendo Switch version. Trails Through Daybreak II followed in February 2025. Trails Beyond the Horizon reached the world in January 2026, more than a year after its Japanese release.

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• 6. Beyond the Games

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  Ys vs. Trails in the Sky, released in Japan in July 2010, pairs characters from Trails with those of Falcom's Ys series in a fighting game. It stayed Japan-only until fans produced an English translation patch in October 2021. The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails, from July 2012, is an action role-playing game set outside Zemuria. It reached the world in 2023. The Legend of Heroes: Trails at Sunrise, made by UserJoy Technology, began as a browser game in 2016 and was later ported to other platforms. It was never released outside Japan.

  Anime came to the series in November 2011, when Kinema Citrus produced the first part of an original video animation of Trails in the Sky SC. The second part followed in February 2012. Sentai Filmworks licensed both for North America that same year. In early 2023, Tatsunoko Production aired a 12-episode series, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Northern War. A mobile game based on it launched in Japan in December 2023 and worldwide in May 2024.

  Manga adaptations cover several games, and Trails in the Sky received a novelization. Two original manga, The Ring of Judgment and The Tale of Loewe, supply backstory for certain characters. Characters also appeared in Minna Atsumare! Falcom Gakuen, a four-part comedy manga that inspired two short anime in the mid-2010s.

  Audio dramas fill in details the games glossed over. Xseed Games translated transcripts of two Cold Steel dramas and published them online to promote Cold Steel II. A 2.5D musical based on Cold Steel ran in January 2017. In 2024, Promethium Books released a tabletop game called Trails of Destiny, and TCG Corporation launched a trading card game in Japan in November 2024.

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• 7. Praise and Complaints

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  Critics and fans have compared Trails to George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons & Dragons, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The comparison rests on scope and continuity. Players have praised its character arcs and worldbuilding. The soundtrack, written by Falcom's in-house composers, Falcom Sound Team jdk, has also drawn praise. English localizations are admired for their quality. The complaint is speed, since they tend to trail the Japanese originals by years.

  By 2025, the series had sold nine million copies worldwide. Its characters and settings have also turned up in crossover promotions with Monster Hunter Frontier G, Chain Chronicle V, Dead or Alive 5, Fantasy Earth Zero, Langrisser Mobile, Utawarerumono: Zan and Valkyrie Anatomia. A 2019 collaboration with VREX, a virtual reality arcade and café in Japan, featured the cast as well.

  Falcom has already outlined one of the final pieces. A sequel to Trails Beyond the Horizon is planned to close the Calvard arc.

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