Trails Through Daybreak 2 preview: Time after time

We got to see Trails Through Daybreak 2 during a recent hands-off preview and spoke with NIS America producer Alan Costa about how it differs from the previous RPG

Trails Through Daybreak 2 / NIS America

NIS America is closing the gap between Japanese and international releases of Nihon Falcom’s massive Trails RPG series, with Trails Through Daybreak 2 set for launch eight months after its predecessor. Despite being a direct sequel, Daybreak 2 adopts a much different approach to storytelling compared to the first game, one that’s centered on time travel. GLHF got to see some of it during a recent hands-off preview and spoke with NIS America producer Alan Costa about what to expect and how Daybreak 2 improves on the first game’s battle systems.

• Read more: How Falcom forged Trails Through Daybreak in a crucible of change

Daybreak 2 picks up a few months after the first game ends. Costa gave away a few details about what to expect that NIS America hadn’t already made public, but the gist of it is this: the Almata gang is, seemingly, off the stage for now, but just when it seems like everything may go back to normal in Calvard and the capital city, a series of brutal murders takes place. The culprit – a red Grendel. Protagonist Van Arkride takes the form of a blue Grendel under certain circumstances, and as far as anyone knew to this point, he was the only one with this unexplained, potentially deadly power.

Trails Through Daybreak 2 / NIS America

Elaine Auclair, Van’s friend and Calvard’s most famous Bracer, enlists Van’s help, and the pair end up working with Nadia and Swin from Trails Into Reverie. If none of these words makes sense, you’ll probably want to brush up on the series before Daybreak 2 releases. It includes a glossary of terms, some of which NIS America showed during the preview, but they’re written like brief encyclopedia entries designed as a memory refresh for those who already know the story’s major beats so far.

In short, Daybreak 2 is not a good starting point for the series. Expecting players to get through almost a dozen RPGs before playing the newest is still one of the series’ weakest points, and one Falcom is only just now trying to address with a Trails in the Sky remake. However, for those who have seen what came before, it sounds as if Daybreak 2 has plenty to offer.

• Read more: Trails Through Daybreak Review: Summer’s must-play RPG

A common criticism when Daybreak 2 first launched in Japan was that it does little to move the series forward. However, Costa likens it to Reverie and Trails in the Sky the 3rd, two entries in the series that explore plot threads and character developments that the other games don’t have time for and that end up being important to the broader narrative later on. Sky the 3rd, for example, builds a narrative framework that Trails is still filling out, with some events from that game only just now coming into focus in Kai no Kiseki, the series’ latest release in Japan.

Trails Through Daybreak 2 / NIS America

And it’s probably a good thing that Daybreak 2 has a lot of important things to say. Like Sky the 3rd and Reverie, Daybreak 2 unfolds in an unorthodox way, one that could end up making progress feel a bit tiresome. Van and company encounter dead ends at times – literally, in cases where the party meets a gruesome end – and rewind time to find an alternate route. 

The segment NIS America showcased was from early in the game and saw Elaine, Nadia, Swin, and Zin, the latter of whom you may remember as Zane if you played Trails in the Sky, traverse the same dungeon three times before finding a successful route. The area changed a bit each time and included additional narrative scenes and character moments, though I can see this potentially getting repetitive fast.

Trails Through Daybreak 2 / NIS America

Still, I’m willing to put up with a bit of same-y dungeon crawling if Daybreak 2 makes the story worthwhile, and it sounds like it will. When I asked Costa how he’d describe the feel or theme of Daybreak 2 compared to the first game, he said it gets “into the nitty-gritty” more. The first Daybreak is an introductory game, and now that the main cast and their motivations are clear, Daybreak 2 can do more with them, so much so that  Costa says he thinks Daybreak 2 has some of the deepest character development in the series to date. 

The concept of sin plays a prominent role in that development, Costa says, and he recommends bearing it in mind while playing – what sin means, what sins the cast may be committing, and why it matters. With such a religious concept at the center of Daybreak 2, perhaps it’s fitting, then, that joining the cast from the first Daybreak are two characters from the Septian Church – Celis Ortesia and Leon Balthazar. 

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Trails sequels usually refine their predecessors’ battle systems rather than reinvent them, and that’s what Daybreak 2 does as well. Each character has an Orbment that holds elemental crystals. These crystals grant the user special abilities and stat buffs, and they have elemental values that, once they reach a certain threshold, unlock more powerful skills. Most Orbments are geared toward specific playstyles in combat – one character pushes her toward using magic, for example, while another’s is built for speed – but Costa says there’s enough flexibility to allow for granular customization and deep character building, especially on harder difficulty settings.

Trails Through Daybreak 2 / NIS America

Some of that flexibility comes from Dual Arts, skills that bear characteristics of more than one element. Costa compares them to Lost Arts in Trails of Cold Steel, but without the mythological significance or setpiece boss battles that accompanied those spells. Dual Arts come from special treasure chests locked behind a mini-game, and since they start showing up early in the game, you can tinker with your character setups sooner than usual in Trails games.

The sequel also improves on action combat by making it a more viable option. The first Daybreak limits you to using a standard attack and a dodge move, which gets old pretty quickly. Daybreak 2 adds the option to use an attack art and, from the look of it, generally makes action combat less of a chore. Given how long – and full of standard enemies – Trails dungeons are, the option to avoid turn-based battles if you just want to speed through is a welcome one.

I’m still a bit leery of those repeat excursions into the same dungeons as you rewind time again and again, but there’s not much longer to wait to see how it all goes down. Trails Through Daybreak 2 launches for PC, PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch on February 14, 2025.