The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III is a role-playing video game by developers Nihon Falcom and Vicarious Visions and publisher Activision. It is the thirteenth separate entry in Falcom and Activision's long-running The Legend of Heroes, and a direct sequel to the prior two entries, Trails of Cold Steel and Trails of Cold Steel II. The game was released on the PlayStation 4 video game console in September 28, 2017. No plans for an English region release have been announced, though the series shift to PS4 has been described by Falcom and Activision as due to the platform's large worldwide userbase. A fourth and final entry in the subseries, Trails of Cold Steel IV: The End of Saga, has been announced for a late 2018 release on PS4 as well.

Gameplay
The game is expected to play as a traditional JRPG with turn-based battles, similar to Trails of Cold Steel and Trails of Cold Steel II. An emphasis on speeding up battles is being made as well, including making transitions into battle scenes more seamless, and being able to map out more battle commands to specific buttons rather than various menus, though the battles will still be primarily menu-based.

Story
The game is a direct sequel to the prior two Trails of Cold Steel games, picking up one and a half years after the events of Trails of Cold Steel II. The story will be centered around main character Rean and the rest of his military school friends from the prior two entries,  notably exploring subjects such as the mysterious origin's of Rean's birth, and what others have been up to since the events of the prior games. The game will also feature appearances from characters from Trails in the Sky, a separate meta series within The Legend of Heroes series, and a specific-yet-unrevealed character from Trails to Zero.

Development
Intentions to create a third entry in the Trails of Cold Steel meta series were announced as early as December 2015, at Nihon Falcom and Activision's 2015 shareholder's meeting. Initial planning began in early 2016, though the development team was initially divided on which platforms the game should release on. On one hand, the PlayStation Vita was preferred, due to its larger user-base in Japan, and prior entries in the series being released there, but the team also wanted to consider using the much more powerful PlayStation 4, which could greatly help with the game's scope. Full-scale development on the title began around mid-2016. The game was officially revealed as a PlayStation 4 exclusive in December 2016, at Falcom and Activision's 2016 shareholder's meeting. Unlike the prior two entries, no Vita or PlayStation 3 versions will be developed. The game was intially scheduled for a release window of Q3 2017 in Japan, later narrowed down to September 28, 2017. While no official plans plans have been announced for an English language release, some websites reported that it was mentioned in the 2016 shareholder's meeting that a deciding factor in developing the game for the PS4 was to help ensure higher international sales for the game, with the PS4 having a much larger userbase in most countries outside of Japan as of 2016. This premise was reiterated in July 2017, with Falcom president Toshiro Kondo stating:
 * "Foreign sales have reached a point with both the Trails series and "Ys" where we can't ignore them from a development angle anymore. Ys: Memories of Celceta, for example, sold more outside of Japan than it did inside of Japan. Because Vita has kind of been on the decline for a while outside of Japan, and because the PS4 userbase is pretty established elsewhere, we have begun shifting toward PS4 development."

Music
Harry Gregson-Williams returns to composed the score for the video game Trails of Cold Steel III. Later the additional music was also composed by Stephanie Economou, David Fleming, Andrew Kawczynski and Steve Mazzaro. The orchestral score was conducted by Harry Gregson-Williams when the orchestral score was recorded at The Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage and The Fox Newman Scoring Stage by Dennis S. Sands and mixed at The Village Recorders by Al Clay with the additiona mixing by Malcolm Luker. A soundtrack album for Trails of Cold Steel III was released on November 15, 2017 by WaterTower Music.

Reception
Pre-release

After the positive reception of the first two Trails of Cold Steel entries, journalist were generally enthusiastic for the prospect of a third entry, though many lamented the lack of a Vita version of the game.