There are few stories in video games as expansive, or ambitious, as the Trails series. Since 2004 Nihon Falcom’s biggest RPG franchise has told one continuous story in the same world, spread across more than 12 different games and four generations of consoles. But everything has to end someday, and it looks like the Trails series’ finale is finally in sight. But how do you end something that’s become so popular and so defining to the developer as a whole? Well, Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo isn’t entirely sure either.
Last June, Kondo said that the Trails series is 80 percent complete, and fans shouldn’t expect to see a 30th anniversary. That gives us an idea of where things are at, but a new interview with Push Square gives us a wealth of new details about how the rest of the franchise might pan out. The most recent release in the West, Trails Through Daybreak, introduces the “Calvard Arc,” with a brand new set of characters.
“So the thing about the Calvard... arc, if you want to call it that, this is the place where the arc itself is becoming the climax of the entire series. We've already seen a lot in these first two Calvard games that have kind of pushed things to a higher level of understanding with what's going on in the world of Zemuria,” Kondo tells Push Square, “So once this Calvard arc — however long it ends up being — is complete, the series itself, overall, will be about 90% complete.”
It’s hard to say exactly how many more games that will give us, but Kondo’s previous comments were made before the Japanese release of Kai No Kiseki — which means we can likely expect at least two more games. However, it seems like the plan might not totally be in place yet.
Kondo notes that the development team got exceptionally good at thinking of how to ensure that Trails would continue, but never had the chance to stop and think "Okay, how are we supposed to end this thing?"
That’s partially understandable, as few franchises have the chance to tell as grand of a story as Trails. In a way, it’s almost become a serialized video game series, and the only thing that’s really comparable is an ongoing game like Final Fantasy XIV — which also has no end in sight.
“We're at the point where the development staff are working on writing up the end of the Calvard arc. And as the president, I've spoken to certain members of the team, and I've said to them you also need to give me how this whole thing ends.’ So that's kind of the current instruction that I have for the team,” Kondo says, “I don't know necessarily if that's quite how it all ends, but it's very important for me and the developers themselves to come up with an ending, and share that with the team so that they have something to work towards, even if we end up changing it a little bit.”
Even if the ending isn’t actually clear right now, it’s heartening to hear that Kondo and Falcom are making sure it’s the ending the team wants. Creators don’t always get to end things on their own terms, especially for properties that have exploded in popularity, but Falcom is in an interesting position where it can afford to do what it wants. Trails games clearly have restrained budgets but enough popularity in both Japan and the West to keep things surging.
But 20 years is a long time to work on the same thing, and as Kondo says, “The truth is that some of these folks have been working on the series for a very long time now, and they're kind of ready to move on to new things.”
Of course, Falcom still has plenty of other games with room to experiment, including the Ys series and the upcoming sequel to Tokyo Xanadu. But Trails was really what catapulted Falcom to worldwide success, and it has an incredibly devoted following in the West now. So much so that we’re almost caught up with the cadence of Japanese releases. Trails Through Daybreak 2 now has a release date of February, 2025, and Japan’s most recent game, Kai No Kiseki, also seems like a shoo-in for a release next year. At that point, we’ll be caught up, and there may even be a future where the world gets to experience the end of Trails at the same time.
No matter what, though, Trails is a saga unlike anything else in video games, and if Falcom can really stick the landing, it might just make history.
