Trails to Azure, the direct sequel to Trails from Zero, will release in the West for the first time ever next year. The Japanese RPG, which many fans claim is one of the best entries in Falcom's long-standing series, launches on the 14th March in North America, and the 17th March in Europe.
Again, Azure follows on from the events of Zero (which hit PS4 back in September). Lloyd Bannings and his friends at the Special Support Section are faced with yet more shadowy threats, just as their popularity is starting to soar. You can get a taste of what's to come via the game's story trailer, which we've embedded above.
Publisher NIS America has also published the title's amazing key art at a high resolution:
Will you be cracking a new case in Trails to Azure? Fight for your own justice in the comments section below.
Comments 14
I'm on Chapter 4 on Zero at the moment. It's been awesome so far! If they keep to this release schedule they seem to be on we might get Trails into Reverie by the end of next year. Then we can finally start the Calvard arc in 2024!
Thank you NISA and Geofront for doing Aidios' work!
Do we know if PS4 will get the inferior version again?
TBH this game arrives very late for me. When I preordered Cold Steel 4 I started from Sky 1 to 3 (on PC in easy mode with the high speed button on), watched 100% playthroughs of the Crossbell games and then I beat Cold Steel 1 to 4 on PS4 (again in easy and high speed). Playing all of them back to back was ... something.
Also, I thought that releasing Cold Steel 5 or whatever is called West would be a bigger priority than the Crossbell games considering how old they are. By the time we have it Calvard 2 will be out in Japan...
@belmont We don't know for sure yet, but yeah, I wouldn't bet on the PS4 port being updated at all, much like Zero.
Loved Zero. It’s nice knowing I’ll not have to wait long to play another game in the series.
Playing through Zero right now. Let's gooooo BAYBEE
Really enjoying trails from Zero so far. It has a charm and hook I don’t find in other games at the moment. I played Cold Steel 1 before this, and while Zero technically takes place before, it hasn’t been a problem for me. Would playing Cold Steel 2 before Azure be “ok”? I’ve also not played Trails in the Sky 3 yet, so might play that before Azure comes out.
I’ve completed zero already and it’s my game of the year so far. Looking forward to the next part.
@emj2010 Yeah, I wouldn't worry to much about the order in which you play the Trails games, as long as you're starting at the beginning of a specific saga (like starting with CS1, or Zero).
Obviously they all interlock, but the idea that you need to play them all in chronological order is too much, in my opinion. Again, as long as you play each saga from their respective beginnings, you can easily fill in the gaps (or go back at a later date).
After neglecting the ps4 version because falcom and their backwards ways this'll be a hard pass on ps. Excited for the switch/pc version.
@ShogunRok I strongly disagree. The sky series is meant to build the world. And the 3rd has MANY important plot points for future games. Not to mention cold steel 4 is their mcu endgame where everything comes together, and the further you go the more you'll spoil the last game. Cold steel spoils the crossbell games and even the sky games. It won't have the same impact if you skip games.
@RedRiot193 Sure, but you're asking people to spend hundreds of hours playing through games that haven't aged well just for some story points to have a bigger impact. I feel like it's a damaging attitude when trying to introduce new players to the Trails games.
I get it, but skipping the Sky games is far from the end of the world. You can easily read up on the plot from those games or watch the cutscenes on YouTube and you'll save yourself 100+ hours. The simple reality is that not everyone has the time or the patience to go all the way back to the start and play everything in order.
I strongly believe new players should start with what saga they like the look of, and if they really enjoy it, they can always go backwards and fill in the gaps. I don't see the point in starting with the Sky games only to bounce off them because they're many years old, when that person might have really enjoyed Cold Steel right off the bat. Hopefully that makes sense.
@ShogunRok The old games play fine. It's just turn based gameply. We're not talking about some old action game that has major issues. One of the main issues with the older titles is how incredibly slow they are with their turn based gameplay. This has been addressed with the turbo mode. Which makes turn based gameplay way more smoother experience.
I disagree again. It's like skipping the first few one piece episodes and going to watch the current wanno arc. Without much context you won't understand many things and yes you do have to put in the time just like with anything else. Estelle and joshua appearing in future games won't have the same impact nor will you know their hardships. Reading or watching it isn't going to help either because you won't see how the characters delevelop.
This part bugs me "The simple reality is that not everyone has the time or the patience to go all the way back to the start and play everything in order." But those same people will put 100+ hours into other games anyways so what's the difference? I think the real reason is not a matter of time, but people want to play the shiny new thing, or what's currently relevant/popular. I garuntee you if the sky evo games came out tomorrow for ps4/switch/pc we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I started with cold steel. I'm one of those people that did what you just said and ended up regretting it. The moment I got to cold steel 3 and it started spoiling other games I immediately stopped. Then I found out could steel 1 and 2 spoil the crossbell games. So moments from azure were ruined for me already. I went back to the sky games and then crossbell games and vowed to not go back to cold steel until I finished them. And ended up loving the sky games more actually. I would never recommend skipping games for that reason.
I won't be touching this or Zero until they release patches with the PC version improvements.
@ShogunRok thanks - yeah, agree about the lack of necessity to play in chronological. But currently going through Zero and will probably need a break from Legend of Heroes Games after finishing this one. But Zero so far, very good.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...