Hi everyone,

today we are releasing a patch for Trails of Cold Steel III which improves how the game interacts with platform achievement APIs. This should prevent performance issues in some circumstances, specifically when a large number of achievements was already unlocked.

Note that this issue surfaced due to changes in how Steam deals with repeated achievement API calls, and this change affects many of our prior releases in similar ways. We are committed to patching all affected releases, but this has taken some time, especially for cases where we need to re-build games for which we already archived various development resources.

Cheers,
Peter "Durante" Thoman, PH3

+ Wishlist today and stay tuned for updates leading up to the game's release!


No longer threatened by the mafia organization Almata, the people of Calvard have returned to their peaceful lives. But one day, a shocking series of murders involving a mysterious crimson beast sets the wheels of fate in motion once again. Various factions spring into action – both those who abide by the law to uncover the truth and those looking to capitalize on any new developments wherever possible, no matter how sinister.

With chaos once again looming on the horizon, the spriggan Van Arkride receives an unexpected visitor, prompting his own investigation. Who is behind the murders, and what is their goal? The sands of time bring old and new faces together for this thrilling second installment in the Trails through Daybreak saga.

Year 1209 of the Septian Calendar.

The threat posed by Almata has passed. Peace has finally returned to Calvard. And, for a time, that peace goes uninterrupted—until a CID special forces unit is slaughtered by an unknown assailant.

With authorities working to contain the situation, criminal forces take the chance to make their own moves.

Meanwhile, a spriggan by the name of Van Arkride begins his own investigation—after prompting from an unexpected visitor.

Who could be responsible for this massacre? What was their objective? And how does it all relate to Agnès' search for the eighth Genesis?

A crimson beast's roar. A chance meeting with a boy and girl, both embroiled in a mysterious search. These are the circumstances that lure Arkride Solutions down the trail of an inescapable fate.

Battle System
The game builds on the seamless transition between field battles and command battles introduced in the previous game with new mechanics that can be used in both: Cross Charge & EX Chains! Mastering the use of these two combo mechanics can provide you with overwhelming firepower to use against your opponents.

- Cross Charge
If you manage to Perfect Dodge an enemy's attack during a field battle, the Cross Charge icon will appear! Pushing the correct button while the icon is on-screen will swap in another party member, who will simultaneously execute a charge attack on your foe! As a bonus, the party member that you swap in will have enhanced attack power for a period of time.

- EX Chains
EX Chains can be activated by fulfilling specific conditions during command battles. Once these conditions have been met, using a craft or normal attack against a stunned enemy will automatically activate an EX Chain! This allows party members with SCLM activated to launch a simultaneous attack that will also impact nearby enemies, dealing massive damage.

Choose Your Chapters
Van and his collaborators will not always travel together during the events of Trails through Daybreak II. At times, some of the group may split off in order to take care of tasks in different areas of Calvard concurrently. Because of this, each act contains multiple chapters you can play in any order. Progress the story in the order you choose! Each chapter features a different cast of characters as we see their side of the act's story play out.

Once you've completed your chosen chapter, the next one will start up automatically.

Unique Missions
Certain chapters will feature missions that utilize the unique skillsets of the characters in that chapter's party. For example, directly controlling the holo core AI, Mare, to hack the orbal network, or using Swin to silently tail a suspicious individual.

Van Arkride
The man at the head of Arkride Solutions. A lover of sweets, saunas, and orbal cars. Due to his job as a spriggan, Van has a tendency to take on legally-questionable jobs. However, the fact that he occasionally walks on the edge of the law does not preclude him from doing good by others—as is evidenced by his numerous personal contacts. While tracking down the Oct-Geneses at Agnès' request, Van developed the ability to transform into an armored form known as the Grendel with the help of Mare, the holo core installed within his combat orbment. It was with this new ability that he was able to fend off the mafia group known as Almata. Having once terrorized the entirety of the Republic, Almata was eventually brought to its knees by the Arkride Solutions team during the fight for the Oct-Geneses. Upon the quelling of this threat, however, they decided to temporarily go their separate ways. Now left to himself in a less-than- lively office, Van is free to return to his lone-wolf lifestyle once more.

Agnès Claudel
A first-year at the prestigious Aramis Academy who currently serves on its Student Council. Despite her polite manner of speaking and at times meek demeanor, Agnès has shown great strength and determination while employed at Arkride Solutions—especially when facing off against the seedy underbelly of society. Agnès first met Van while searching for eight prototype orbments known as the Oct-Geneses, which she inherited from her great-grandfather. As thanks for taking on her request, she began working as one of Arkride Solution's part-time assistants. At present, Agnès has recovered seven of the eight Geneses. Unfortunately, while continuing her search for the last remaining Genesis, she's had no choice but to also divide her time between preparing for the Aramis Academy Festival and periodically helping out around Arkride Solutions. Regarding her relationship with Van, she both respects and admires him as her employer. However, she seems to be harboring some more amorous feelings for him as well...

Elaine Auclair
An A-rank bracer affiliated with the Calvard branch of the Bracer Guild. She is occasionally referred to by the moniker 'Beauty's Blade.' Due to her dignified beauty and masterful skill with a sword, Elaine tends to catch the eye of the media more often than not. Unfortunately, this also leads to talent agencies offering her contracts for modeling and acting—she always declines. Outside of being the poster girl for the Bracer Guild, Elaine has no present interest in joining the world of entertainment. During her high school years, she enjoyed a brief and fleeting romance with Van before he suddenly vanished without so much as a word. It was only recently, after seven years, that the two were able to reunite. Although their lingering feelings for each other have left their current relationship a bit tense, their time fighting Almata together was able to strengthen their bond once more. Some time after the events involving Almata and the Oct-Geneses, Elaine received word that the Central Intelligence Department's elite Gamma Squad had been brutally murdered by an unknown assailant, and that a 'crimson' monster was spotted at the scene of the crime...

The Republic of Calvard
A large country located in the central region of the Zemurian continent. Its current leader is President Roy Gramheart. Due to the unfortunate circumstances created by the desertification of eastern Zemuria, Calvard has a substantial history of receiving both immigrants and refugees. The resulting mixture of cultures and ethnicities has made the country into something of a melting pot. One hundred years ago, Calvard was under the heel of its monarchal rulers. It was only after Sheena Dirke and her compatriots brought about a democratic revolution that the nation was transformed into a democratic republic. Though in constant conflict with Erebonia over the control of bordering regions, Calvard has recently been on the receiving end of reparations from the empire following the Battle of Jormungandr. These reparations enabled Calvard to enter a period of rapid growth and development, leading to its eventual overtake of Erebonia as the most powerful nation on the continent. Regarding the region's recreational interests, recent technological advancements in orbal vehicles and filmmaking have caused a boom in both the motorsports and orbal cinema industries.

Messeldam
A moderate-sized city located in the north of Calvard. Due to its long-standing role as one of the Northern Sea’s major trading ports, Messeldam was often tasked during the days of monarchal rule with the delivery of imports to the capital of Oración—along with fresh seafood, of course. Although the port remains active to this day, developments in airship technology have greatly diminished its significance. The city itself, however, remains an important gateway to Remiferia and its surrounding nations. Unlike Langport, Messeldam possesses very few tourist destinations. That being said, the townscape's architecture tends to be quite popular with visitors, as its design has seen little change in the past century. The city’s Eastern and Central Eastern populations are fairly meager due to its geographical location. As such, it lacks a community that values cultural traditionalism. This has, fortunately, been a boon for Messeldam, as new art movements and customs are accepted with relative ease. It was this very attitude that led to the city serving as the venue for the Orbal Film Festival for a number of years, until its relocation to Tharbad in 1208.

After the war, Calvard is enjoying unprecedented economic prosperity. However, the public grows uncertain as the number of immigrants increases and political reform runs rampant. Follow Van, a young man and local spriggan, on a unique request that will prove more than he bargained for. Will the nation fall into chaos?

The AT (Action Time) battle command has been completely revamped transitioning seamlessly from field battles to turn-based combat. The sixth-generation tactical orbment Xipha offers a revolutionary combat experience unique to this iteration of the Trails series!

In addition, the Topic System allows players to gain an advantage in battle by using conversation topics as bargaining chips. These topics can be obtained by interacting with other characters throughout the city. The game also features the Alignment system, which allows players to change their character’s three unique attributes and influence characteristics such as their status, the forces they fight with (or against), and even how the plot unfolds.

Dive into the dynamic adventure in "Trails through Daybreak!"

Story
The spriggan's life is but one of many professions that has emerged from the Calvard Republic. Be it playing detective, negotiator, or bounty hunter, Van Arkride takes on the kind of work that can't be taken to more legitimate sources. It could be something the police can't handle, work that's best left out of the public eye, or even a request from a criminal of organization in the underworld; so long as it pays and doesn't cross too far over the gray line, he'll accept near-any job that comes across his table.

The year is 1208. A prim-and-proper young lady dressed in the uniform of an esteemed academy visits a dilapidated, multi-tenant building in a downtown district of Edith, the nation's capital. With a most dignified gaze, she looks upon the plague of the door before her. It reads: 'ARKRIDE Solutions Office: Complicated Matters Only.'

Steeling herself, she knocks on the door three times.

"First thing in the morning...?" a relaxed yet surprisingly young voice grumbles with a yawn.

From the moment he opens the door to greet her, a new tale begins.

Key Features

• The AT (Action Time) Battle system has been completely revamped, transitioning seamlessly from field battles to turn-based combat.
  
• The sixth-generation combat orbment, Xipha, offers a revolutionary combat experience unique to this iteration of the Trails series!
  
  
• In addition, the Topic System allows players to gain an advantage in battle by using conversation topics as bargaining chips. These topics can be obtained by interacting with other characters throughout the city.
  
• The game also features the Alignment system, which allows players to change their character’s three unique attributes and influence characteristics such as their status, the forces they fight with (or against), and even how the story unfolds.

Get The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak today and enjoy English launch exclusive bonuses!

*Owners of the Japanese version of "The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak (Kuro no Kiseki)" will automatically receive English language support in an update scheduled for July 5, 2024.

The English release is almost here! To mark the occasion, enjoy better discounts on the Deluxe and Ultimate editions. Take advantage of the limited-time bonuses and get your copy today!

Hi everyone!

It's been a while, but we are providing a new update to Trails of Cold Steel III today. This is primarily in response to some relatively recent changes in behaviour on a subset of systems with AMD GPUs, but we also sneaked in a few more fixes:

• Fix potential text-rendering-related performance issues which could occur on AMD GPU hardware on some systems.
  
• Improve collision detection to prevent getting out-of-bounds in some rare scenarios and at specific framerates.
  
• Improve responsiveness of Alt-F4 for quitting the game.

Note on Reverting to Previous Versions
While we of course aim for each new version to only solve issues and provide improvements over all previous ones, it is always possible for something to break on some particular configuration.
Therefore, we keep all versions available as Beta branches in Steam. Should an update lead to issues on your system, you can revert to a previous branch by selecting "Properties" -> "Betas" in the Steam library and choosing a version from the drop down menu. If you can confirm that the new version caused a problem, please report it as a regression.

- Durante

Hi everyone!

I hope you are enjoying Trails of Cold Steel III!
We just released a minor update which fixes a startup crash issue on uncommon system configurations:

• Fixed a crash on startup when launching the game on a system with no audio devices while having video playback enabled.

Note on Reverting to Previous Versions
While we of course aim for each new version to only solve issues and provide improvements over all previous ones, it is always possible for something to break on some particular configuration.
Therefore, we keep all versions available as Beta branches in Steam. Should an update lead to issues on your system, you can revert to a previous branch by selecting "Properties" -> "Betas" in the Steam library and choosing a version from the drop down menu. If you can confirm that the new version caused a problem, please report it as a regression.

- Durante

Hi everyone!

I hope you are enjoying Trails of Cold Steel III!
We just released a minor update which fixes issues related to DLC packaging and the localization system used for DLCs:

• Fixed an issue which could cause crashes upon loading some DLC content.
  
• Fixed a rendering issue with portraits for characters wearing DLC costumes.

Note on Reverting to Previous Versions
While we of course aim for each new version to only solve issues and provide improvements over all previous ones, it is always possible for something to break on some particular configuration.
Therefore, we keep all versions available as Beta branches in Steam. Should an update lead to issues on your system, you can revert to a previous branch by selecting "Properties" -> "Betas" in the Steam library and choosing a version from the drop down menu. If you can confirm that the new version caused a problem, please report it as a regression.

- Durante

Trails of Cold Steel 3 for PC will be released in a couple of days, but before that happens, we wanted to provide a bit of insight into the specifics of the PC version.

Just like the ports of its predecessors, ToCS3 on PC adds a number of graphical and convenience features unique to the platform. These returning ToCS PC favourites include:

• A timed autosave feature with custom save intervals.
  
• Configurable turbo modes with separate factors for battles and other gameplay.
  
• Arbitrary framerate support up to 480 FPS.
  
• A large range of Field of View adjustments.
  
• Arbitrary resolution support (tested up to 8k), with all secondary rendertargets scaling correctly with the main resolution.
  
• Several MSAA modes, and optional transparency supersampling.
  
• High-quality ambient occlusion in the form of HBAO+.
  
• A high-quality postprocessing effects option.
  
• Flexible input rebinding for both keyboard/mouse inputs and gamepads, with the correct re-bound prompts showing up in all in-game tutorials.
  
• An unlimited drawing range option for high-end systems to eliminate pop-in.
  
• Support for utrawide 21:9 aspect ratios.

One of the new challenges with ToCS3 is the sheer size of its assets. The Trails of Cold Steel games are long and intricate, and the third entry pairs this large amount of content with significantly more detailed assets designed for more modern hardware.

With just normal texture compression, the 3D model assets and textures alone (excluding e.g. movies and all sound/voice acting) take up over 60 GiB of space -- and that's only for the Japanese version. While Steam and GoG would reduce the download size a bit, that would still be a rather large chunk of space to dedicate to a single game.

As such, early on in the port development we investigated and implemented many options for asset compression. Good compression in this use case needs to fulfill several criteria: (i) it should be lossless, so that we can apply it to arbitrary assets without worry; (ii) it should not increase load times significantly, even on lower-end systems; and of course, (iii) it needs to actually meaningfully decrease the storage space required.

Some options, like LZMA compression, failed early on the load time criteria. Other simple options did not provide a sufficient reduction in size.



Ultimately, the field narrowed to LZ4 and ZSTD as compression schemes, with the addition of our engine-specific PKA format which primarily performs hash-based deduplication on game assets.

As the image above shows, measuring loading performance correctly for PC games is not trivial. Windows caches all file accesses in RAM as long as any unused space is left, which means that repeated ("hot") loads will be much faster than initial ("cold") loads. Also, for cold loads, the HDD/SSD access and read time is a significant factor, which is not the case for hot loads. During gameplay, players will encounter a mixture of hot and cold loads depending on how they traverse maps and even how much available RAM their system has.

ZSTD-PKA reduces the asset file size to ~16 GiB from over 60 GiB, but roughly doubles hot load times, and also decreases cold load performance compared to ZSTD without packaging. Based on this result, we changed the sorting of data within the PKA (PKA-S), which achieved improved cold load times without any other drawbacks. Finally, we actually took a step back to LZ4, to trade some compression effectiveness for greatly improved hot load times.

Ultimately, LZ4-PKA-S gives us a very acceptable asset package size of ~18 GB, with the best cold load times of all options -- a huge improvement in cold load times over no compression at all! -- and very acceptable hot load performance. We hope you enjoy the work that went into this aspect while playing the game!

For previous ToCS games on PC, various levels of MSAA (with optional transparency supersampling) were sufficient for most use cases. These games were built to run on a PS3, and as such most PCs had ample headroom for such high-quality, but relatively performance-intensive anti-aliasing options.

Trails of Cold Steel III was originally built for PS4, which means that its baseline resource requirements are significantly higher. Therefore, on many current PC systems MSAA might not be the ideal trade-off between image quality and performance.



As you can see above, at "high" game settings 8xMSAA with transparency supersampling alone can reduce performance by more than half. Even 4xMSAA can have an almost 30% performance impact. 2xMSAA is cheaper, but its effect is rather weak for long and high-contrast aliasing.

To provide more options for these use cases, we've also implemented an FXAA option into the game. This implementation is tuned for a minimal impact on overall image quality while providing good anti-aliasing for most obvious geometry edges, with a minor performance impact.

We also made several other improvements during the development of ToCS3 for PC, such as higher-quality shadow filtering with deterministic screen-space dithering. On a more obscure note, I added some logging output for speedrunning purposes, as I was asked to do so by members of the ToCS speedrunning community.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that ToCS3 was originally built for a platform almost an order of magnitude faster than the target hardware of its two predecessors. As such, please do not expect to get the same performance at the same settings which you were able to achieve in ToCS1 and 2 -- given the improvements in asset detail and quality as well as rendering technology, that is an unrealistic goal.

Finally, I would like to thank our beta testers for their in-depth testing, reporting and general responsiveness during the long testing period of this game.

- Peter "Durante" Thoman, PH3

Hi everyone!

I hope you are enjoying the demo for Trails of Cold Steel III on Steam.
We just released another minor update which fixes an issue discovered on some specific hardware configurations:

• Fixed a rendering problem where battle area indicators were corrupted when using MSAA modes on some AMD graphics cards.

- Durante

Hi everyone!

I hope you are enjoying the demo for Trails of Cold Steel III on Steam.
We just released a minor update which makes the following improvements:

• Added an FXAA anti-aliasing option. This gives you a more performance-efficient choice for anti-aliasing in addition to the previously available MSAA modes.
  
• Fixed an issue which could cause the background music to be interrupted or stop playing in some scenes on some systems.
  
• Fixed an issue where a required dependency was not being installed, preventing the game from launching on some systems.

I've also seen some questions regarding demo save files which I'd like to answer here. Yes, your progress in the demo carries over to the full game! You will be able to pick up exactly where you left off.

- Durante

Prepare for battle! The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III is coming to PC on March 23, 2020! This port is packed with various improvements and new features, including:

• Ultrawide screen support
  
• Fully customizable key bindings
  
• Enhanced visuals
  
• Additional High-Speed Mode Options (now up to 6x faster)
  
• Auto-Save functionality

Check out the announcement trailer for more information about the new features, as well as DLC items that will be available in-game at launch! You can also visit our Steam® page to put this game on your wishlist!