Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is the latest example of the power of asset recycling and soap operas.
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In case it wasn't clear, The Last of Us made it obvious: at their best, big-budget video games should be comparable to high-end television, so much so that adapting one for HBO is a relatively straightforward affair. This bar-setting exercise is further demonstrated by other PlayStation series moving towards adaptation: Ghost of Tsushima is set to become a film and anime, God of War has ambitions for Prime Video, and Horizon Zero Dawn, previously on its way to becoming a Netflix series, is now being adapted for cinema. It's no coincidence: games on this scale are a risky proposition, too expensive to just be games.
However, some developers make it look easy by taking the exact opposite approach. Japanese developer Nihon Falcom, an early pioneer in the RPG space, has consistently built one of the greatest stories in video games with the Trails series. Spanning thirteen games, Trails spans the continent of Zemuria and the nations within it, blending personal relationships with a broader interest in the course of history and how cultures and governments respond to the destabilizing advance of modernity.
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What Falcom has done here is astonishing and unparalleled for a single studio of its size — which, according to Bloomberg, has 68 employees — and it has done so while bucking the prevailing video game trend of equating lavish spending with quality.
If most big-budget games aspire to the sensibilities of high-end television, Falcom's games are comparable to soap operas: economical, low-key affairs that aren't as widely acclaimed as their counterparts, but are passionately followed by a small but growing audience.
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What they lack in visual brilliance and technical skill (which is a lot) they make up for in narrative complexity and long, rewarding character arcs (which is amazing). The pleasures of the Trails in the Sky series lie in watching small-scale encounters escalate into heart-pounding conflicts as the characters' individual struggles become absorbed into political machinations and ideology.
