Nintendo Switch Users Are Finally Getting This JRPG After Years of Waiting

In the past, games from Japan would often take months or years to localize. Fans were forced to wait out the localization or learn a new language if they wanted to play some of their favorite games. For the most part, localization has improved over the last few decades, and many games from Japanese developers are now launched day-and-date worldwide. That said, a few publishers are still a little more sluggish than players would like. One such publisher is NIS America, which is behind the fan-favorite Trails series. The long-running series often has separate releases for the Japanese and world audiences, including The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon, which launched in Japan in 2024 but has yet to come to the West. Thankfully, that’s changing soon.

Trails Beyond the Horizon originally launched on PlayStation consoles in Japan in 2024. It then came to PCs in Japan earlier this year. However, the worldwide release was pushed back by more than a year. That’s not too surprising. The last Trails game, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II, launched in Japan in 2022, but didn’t come everywhere else until 2025. This time, the wait isn’t quite as long, as NIS America announced that Trails Beyond the Horizon is coming worldwide on January 15th, 2026. Even better, it’s coming to the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 that day, making it easy for players to hop into the latest entry in the long-running series.

What Is The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon?

Trails Beyond the Horizon is the thirteenth game in the Trails series. The first game, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, launched in 2004, though it’s worth noting that Trails is a sub-series of the larger The Legend of Heroes saga. With that in mind, the series actually goes all the way back to 1989’s Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes.

As you’d expect, there is a ton of lore players can dig into. After all, any series that has 17 entries, many of which are interconnected, you’re going to have quite a bit to learn if you want to jump into the deep end. And that doesn’t even include the various manga and anime the series has created, which serve as supplementary media to the main series.

That said, Trails Beyond the Horizon is firmly in the Trails side of the story. Specifically, it is the third game in the Calvard arc, which began with Trails Through Daybreak and continued in that game’s direct sequel. Trails Beyond the Horizon is not the final game in this particular arc. We already know that a sequel is planned for Trails Beyond, which was officially confirmed in 2024. There’s no word on when to expect that game, but it’s fair to assume players outside of Japan will have to wait for that one as well, though there is some hope things could change.

The Future of Trails

On September 19th, 2025, developer Nihon Falcom released Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. This is a remake of Trails in the Sky, which uses the Trails Through Daybreak engine. Importantly, 1st Chapter had a worldwide release, one of the first times that’s happened in the series’ long history.

Now, it wouldn’t be fair to assume that future Trails games will follow in 1st Chapter‘s footsteps. After all, it’s a remake of a game that launched in 2004. A ton of work likely went into the project, but creating something from the ground up and localizing it is undoubtedly much more difficult than doing everything from the ground up.

However, when you couple that worldwide launch with the fact that the gap between Trails Beyond the Horizon‘s Japanese and worldwide launches is much shorter than the wait for Trails Through Daybreak 2, things seem to be trending in the right direction.

Nihon Falcom and its publisher might not ever get to a day-and-date worldwide release, but it continues to get closer. Just look at the Like a Dragon series for hope. Developer Ryu Ga Gotoku’s games always had a delay, but as the series gained popularity in the West, that gap shrank until Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth had a simultaneous release in 2024. Hopefully, the Trails series gets there too someday.

For now, fans will just have to deal with the delay. The good news is that you’re about to have another massive JRPG to dig into. Trails Beyond the Horizon has a run time of well over 50 hours, and it launches early next year. That’ll give you plenty to do while you wait for 2026’s increasingly packed release calendar to start revving up in the spring.

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