Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, the highly anticipated 3D remake of Nihon Falcom’s 2004 RPG The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, is set to release on September 19. With the global launch just around the corner, AUTOMATON had the chance to chat with Nihon Falcom’s president Toshihiro Kondo, who told us more about what led to their first simultaneous global release in the Trails series.
“From the beginning, we were set on going global with the Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter remake,” Kondo explained. “You might ask why we hadn’t done that ourselves until now, even though we could have. The reason lies in Falcom’s internal circumstances.”
“We’ve been making original games at a really quick pace, and in the past 20 years, we’ve released as many as 14 titles in the Trails series only. I don’t think there are many game studios like ours.” The reason why Falcom is able to deliver new games so quickly is partially due to their approach to development – they work in small but highly focused teams, as Kondo details. However, because of their way of working and the tight schedules they race against, many game specifications aren’t finalized until right before completing the final build of the game, and according to Kondo, sometimes they even leave the scenario unfinished until the last minute. This makes handling localization in parallel an extremely difficult task, which is why Nihon Falcom decided to “focus on making and releasing the Japanese version properly.” On the other hand, being a remake, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, didn’t require writing a whole new scenario, and the developers already had a set idea of what the game was supposed to look like from start – they felt like it was the perfect opportunity to simultaneously work on a global release as well. “While we did make some minor changes, we had the full scenario pretty much set for Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. And because we were kicking off development at a stage where all of the staff were already familiar with the game’s content, we thought – Why don’t we handle the worldwide rollout ourselves?,” Kondo revealed. As soon as the project kicked off, the company was already in talks with business partners about the localization.
Compared to The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky’s localization, which released almost 10 years after the original game, this time fans all across the globe will get to experience the same game at the same time – and this could also be an opportunity for new fans to get introduced to the series. Furthermore, Falcom’s president said that the studio won’t be stopping here with the remakes, teasing a sequel to the 1st Chapter that may be releasing sooner than we think.
Trails in the Sky the 1st launches September 19, 2025 for PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch and PS5. The game will also receive a Nintendo Switch 2 edition, which can be purchased as an Upgrade Pack for $1.00.
