#Trails of Cold Steel Anime Gets “Northern War” Title, New Info

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel anime announced last March will have the title of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel: Northern War, it has been revealed. It was also announced that Tatsunoko Production is producing the show with Hidekazu Satou (Aquarion Logos, Last Hope) as director, and that the anime will be released in 2023 instead of the previously announced 2022 release window.

Additionally, it was revealed that Northern War will feature an original story not told in Nihon Falcom’s JRPG series.  The protagonist will be a girl called Lavie, while the setting will be North Ambria, one of the countries in the Zemurian continent.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series began in 2013 and saw the release of its fourth installment in 2018. The games are part of the larger Trails series that began in 2004, which in turn is part of The Legend of Heroes franchise that dates back to 1989.

The Trails series includes the Trails in the Sky trilogy and the games The Legend of Heroes: Zero no Kiseki and The Legend of Heroes: Ao no Kiseki. The Trails games are connected to each other, but stand separately from the other games in the The Legend of Heroes franchise.

Steam describes the first Trails of Cold Steel game as:

Among the nations on the Zemurian continent, the mighty Erebonian Empire has been quick to outwardly stake its claim militarily; yet politically, ugly bouts of internal conflict between the upper class and commoners attempting to rise to power have been steadily intensifying day by day. The Noble and Reformist Factions have been none too kind to one another over the years, and tensions between the two only stand to worsen if compromises aren’t made in the very near future.

Rean Schwarzer, like any other citizen of the Imperial Nation, is no stranger to these rising conflicts: the class system has been deeply embedded into the hearts of every Erebonian since the days of old. As a seventeen-year-old student preparing for his new life at Thors Military Academy, however, he notices that his crimson uniform differs from the standard ones issued to his peers—typically green for commoners, and white for nobles.

Enter, Class VII of Thors Military Academy. For the first time in the prestigious academy’s history, rank means nothing and skill means everything. With nine hand-picked students of various backgrounds and abilities, Rean included, Class VII readies itself to dive deep into the political quagmire that threatens not only them, but the Empire as a whole.

The Trails series was previously adapted into an anime with a two-part OVA based on The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. The first part was released in 2011 while the second part was released in 2012. The OVA was directed by Masaki Tachibana (Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode Oracle) with Kinema Citrus as the animation production studio.

Sources: @tatsunoko_pro, Tatsunoko Productions website