It’s not every day that playing a video game makes me feel like an old man, despite the fact that my tired eyes start to hurt after just a couple of hours. But a single moment in Trails Beyond the Horizon brought me to a screeching halt, with my jaw hanging open as the “Zoomer” streamer villain I just met threw out a litany of slang words, some of which I’d never even heard before. Trails Beyond the Horizon’s new character, Ulrika, is like staring into the abyss of a broken TikTok algorithm, and while my knee-jerk reaction might have been shock and even a little disdain, over the next 100 hours, I grew to find the character’s bit surprisingly genuine and, admittedly, hilarious. What first felt like a gimmick grew to become one of my absolute favorite parts of the game, enhancing the already distinct personality of the Trails games.
For just a bit of background, Ulrika is a brand-new character introduced in Trails Beyond the Horizon, which is the 13th entry in the long-running series — all of which tell a continuous interconnected story. Across the franchise, there’s a shadowy organization of villains known as Ouroborous — pulling the strings of nearly everything for some unknown purpose. Yes, even after 13 games, we still don’t really know what they’re up to.
