As part of Nihon Falcom’s 40th anniversary celebration stream (above), the company has confirmed that it’s bringing four more games from the Legend of Heroes RPG series to Switch over the next couple of years.
This venerable series began life as a Dragon Slayer spin-off way back in 1989, although the Trails subset didn’t kick off until 2004. Western fans have always had to wait a while for English translations (we didn’t see Trails in the Sky until 2011, for example), but the games have a loyal following and fans will be thrilled to see these ones finally localised and launching overseas.
The games have been announced for Switch, PS4 and PC and the list includes The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails, an action-RPG spin-off from 2021. Here’s the full lineup, including their original Japanese release dates and when we can expect them to launch on Switch:
We spoke to Nihon Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo last year and when asked about the prospect of further games in the series coming to the West, he told us that there was “definitely room for us to consider other titles for it going forward”.
Interestingly, it seems that Falcom and NIS America have teamed up with the fan community to make these releases possible — the fan translations for Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure by Geofront will form the basis of the upcoming official releases, as confirmed by the group itself in a statement. Here’s an excerpt from Zerker, the project lead on the Trails of Zero fan translation:
There were points during Trails from Zero’s first editing pass when I’d dread about the possibility of official localizations being announced out of the blue, dashing our hard work prematurely. I desperately wanted us to be able to finish our work before it reached that point.
And…we did. Somehow—for some reason—everything has worked out. Not just worked out, but worked out in the best possible way. The Geofront was able to release two localization patches that we can be immensely proud of, and we have the opportunity to partner with NIS America to bring these lovely games over officially now. Whenever I sit down and really think about it, I’m speechless. Just absolutely floored.
2023 might seem like a long wait, but Legend of Heroes fans are used to waiting, so at least now they’ve got something to look forward to after they finish up The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV, the latest release for the series in the West (which we liked very much).
Thanks to Citano for the tip! Let us know below if you’re excited to see these titles finally come to the West.
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