Falcom’s Trails in the Sky remake achieves the impossible, a simultaneous global release on Switch, PC, and PS5

Following a brief tease during the August Nintendo Direct, Nihon Falcom fully unveiled its Trails in the Sky remake, and the upcoming RPG is a big first for the studio

Nihon Falcom/GungHo

Following a brief tease during the August Nintendo Direct, Nihon Falcom fully unveiled its Trails in the Sky remake, and the upcoming RPG is a big achievement for the studio. The Trails in the Sky remake, officially called Trails in the Sky: 1st Chapter will launch worldwide in fall 2025 for PC, Switch, and PS5 – no international delays for this one.

Trails in the Sky follows Estelle Bright and her brother - whom her father, Cassius Bright, found injured in the wilds one night and decided to adopt - as they travel the kingdom of Liberl. What starts as training to become Bracers, an international aid organization that helps those in need, becomes a search for their father after he goes missing and eventually leads the pair to the heart of a dark political conspiracy that threatens to plunge their home into war.

• Read more: Trails Through Daybreak Review - 2024's must-play RPG

Trails in the Sky initially released on PC in Japan in 2004. Falcom ported it to the PlayStation Portable in 2006, and XSeed released an English version in 2011.

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is the first time Falcom’s managed to arrange a simultaneous global launch for any of its projects since the company started releasing games internationally in the 1980s, barring one instance where the PS2 port of Ys 6: Ark of Napishtim launched in the U.S. one month before its Japanese release. The massive quantity of text in the Trails games, along with localization delays and contract issues, meant publishers faced more challenges than usual with that series that led to years-long gaps between Japanese and global releases. 

Three – Zero, Azure, and an action-RPG spinoff called Boundless Trails – only launched officially for the first time outside Japan and China in 2022 and 2023, despite first releasing for the PlayStation Portable in the early 2010s. NIS America closed the gap slightly – Trails through Daybreak 2 releases in February 2025, two years after its original launch – but the wait between release dates is still roughly a year or two long.

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

If that all seems a bit confusing and you’re wondering what an Azure is to a Sky and where Daybreak fits in, well, that’s why Falcom is remaking the series’ first game for modern audiences. After two decades and 14 games telling a mostly continuous story, getting new players onboard is a rather momentous task. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a complete remake of the 2004 original, with fully 3D environments and character models – including what looks like some of Falcom’s best animation to date – and overhauls to the RPG’s combat system. Expect a blend of action- and turn-based combat, similar to what Falcom started with Trails through Daybreak.

GungHo Entertainment, the company behind Puzzles and Dragons and the Grandia HD remasters, is publishing Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter and promised a new English voice dub. GungHo and Falcom didn’t say whether Sky 1st Chapter uses XSeed’s popular English script from the 2011 PSP release.