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In an interview with GameSpot, Nihon Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo revealed that the Trails series, which started in 2004 as a branch of the larger The Legend of Heroes series, will soon be put to rest.
“Actually, the series has progressed to the point where its main story is about 80-90% complete. And so while there will be games that come out, and those could be in the form of another arc after this, it won’t continue on too much longer. And you won’t see an arc as big as Cold Steel again. Though we’re currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of the series, you won’t see a 30th or 40th anniversary.”
When asked about Falcom’s future plans, this is what he had to say:
“As for a direct successor to the Trail series, there’s nothing specifically planned–we’re just extremely focused on finishing up Trails. However, in terms of new IPs, there are actually several things that are actively being worked on right now.”
“You see, the Trails series has been going on for 20 years now, and as great a thing as that is, the issue is that that means a lot of folks have been working on that title for many, many years. They want to try new things. They have new ideas. There are new challenges they want to tackle… So, in the background, we allow them to create and work on these new IPs–to talk about the things that they want to do. I believe that that will make them even stronger developers and they’ll have even better ideas that contribute even more to our games.”
Later on, Kondo also talked about simultaneous English and Japanese releases, noting that Falcom has been working closely with publisher NIS America to cut down on the time it takes for the West to receive localized versions of their games.
He also shared one of his favorite things about Trails, with an answer that fans are likely to agree with:
“This is one of few–if not the only–series that’s continued for this long specifically within the same world. There’s a certain joy with being the company that’s been able to do and provide that.”
“Moreover, the Trails series has characters who span across multiple games. A good example would be in [Trails in the] Sky, you’ve got a character who starts out as a little girl. You meet her when she’s 11 or 12 years old. And when you play the later games, you see she’s now an adult. She’s lived her own life and she’s grown throughout the entirety of each of the arcs. Watching her like that creates almost this parental feeling towards her and the rest of these characters. We get to watch them start at one point and then reach all these other great points later on in the series. There’s definitely a joy within that.”