The Legend of Heroes, known in Japan as Eiyū Densetsu,[a] is a series of role-playing video games developed by Nihon Falcom. First starting as a part of the Dragon Slayer series in the late 1980s, the series evolved into its own decade-spanning, interconnected series with seventeen entries, including several subseries. All games in the franchise released since 2004 are part of the Trails subseries, known as Kiseki[1] in Japan. The next entry, The Legend of Heroes: Kai no Kiseki, is scheduled to be released in September 2024.
After the conclusion of the Gagharv trilogy, Falcom introduced a completely new world and story with their next game: The Legend of Heroes VI: Trails in the Sky (2004). The game, later dropping the VI from the title, received two sequels: Trails in the Sky SC (2006) and Trails in the Sky the 3rd (2007). The three games made up the first arc of a new subseries, known as Kiseki (軌跡) in Japanese and Trails in English. Trails would end up becoming a major success for Falcom, with every Legend of Heroes game released since being a part of it.
A Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroesoriginal video animationanime was released in 1992, the same year that Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes II was released, loosely based on the story of the first game.[3] In 1997, it was dubbed into English by Urban Vision and was released onto VHS in North America.
In 2009, three volumes of a Trails in the Sky manga were published in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, which was followed next year by a sequel, Trails from Zero: Pre-Story, published by ASCII Media Works. Two original video animation anime episodes of Trails in the Sky were respectively released in October 2011 and January 2012.[4] A 12-episode anime series set in the Trails universe and produced by Tatsunoko Production, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Northern War, aired in early 2023.[5]