Falcom’s latest financial report (via Gematsu) has revealed that the company will release multiple games in 2021 to celebrate its 40th anniversary. This includes a brand new Trails game. In Japan, Falcom recently released The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki and remasters of Ao no Kiseki and Zero no Kiseki. Falcom recently revealed that the next Trails game will feature a battle system with real-time action elements. The financial report says that multiple titles will be released for console(s). The company will expand its game content to multiple platforms worldwide including PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC, and mobile.
As of now, Falcom releases games on PlayStation systems in Japan while its partners port and localise the games to other systems outside Japan. Most recently, Trails of Cold Steel I and II were confirmed for Nintendo Switch. In the West, NIS America has been slowly releasing Falcom games for PS4 followed by Nintendo Switch and PC versions. The most recent entry is Trails of Cold Steel IV that is fantastic. Read my review here.
As of now, there are three Trails releases on PS4 that are yet to be released in the West. It is going to be interesting to see how NIS America tackles these in the future and in what order they release. As of now, the next Falcom release for the West is Ys IX: Monstrum Nox for PS4 with PC and Nintendo Switch to follow after.
I’m very curious to see when Falcom starts doing native PS5 releases through new games or enhanced releases of its existing catalogue. PS5 backward compatibility is definitely going to be great for smaller publishers and developers in Japan who can continue targetting PS4 and have games playable on PS5 through the PS4 versions.
People should continue to expect Falcom’s partners outside Japan to bring Ys, Trails, and more Falcom franchises to non PlayStation platforms around the time the English PlayStation versions release. Hopefully, the production pipeline eventually allows multiplatform day one releases in the West. As of now, I’m looking forward to playing Ys IX on PS4 in February 2021 and to revisit Trails of Cold Steel IV on Nintendo Switch when it releases in 2021.
