Trails series developers are working on bringing early titles to modern hardware
Nihon Falcom’s Trails series, part of the larger Legend of Heroes franchise, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. With 12 mainline entries and counting, the series maintains a devoted playerbase, but is no doubt intimidating to approach for new players. However, it seems that along with working on new games, Trails’ creators are working on making the series easier to pick up for newcomers, at least when it comes to compatible platforms.
In a recent interview with Dengeki Online, Nihon Falcom CEO Toshihiro Kondo commented that the Trails series’ early titles are becoming difficult to play because they are only available on older hardware (the first game, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky came out on PS3, PSP, PS Vita and Windows). This makes it harder for the RPG series to attract new players. “Of course, I would be happy even if new players went straight to Trails Through Daybreak or Kai no Kiseki (new title releasing September 26 in Japan), but I still wish people would play the introduction to the series, and I’m sure many players feel that way too,” Kondo comments.
Although he does not specify whether it’s a port, remake or remaster, Kondo says that Falcom Games is currently working on “something” in response to this situation, and that he hopes to be able to make the announcement official during the series’ 20th anniversary.
As an aside, Kondo also mentions that Falcom is interested in making another spin-off title in the manner of The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails, but that such a project would have to wait its turn due to the company currently working on multiple titles.
Honestly it will be interesting to see what they do with the series. I do think a remake is in order or at best a remaster that adds onto the original and remodels everything and gives it a more fresh look that can be re-released for Switch and PC.