Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter Is Out Today on PS5, Switch 2, Switch and Steam at $59.99, With a $64.99 Switch 2 Edition and 1st Chapter Save Bonuses

Joshua said goodbye, and now it is Estelle's turn to go and find him. Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter is out today, September 17, on PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. It is Nihon Falcom's full remake of the second game in the Trails in the Sky trilogy, published in the West by GungHo Online Entertainment America, and it picks up the exact moment the first remake left off.

The standard edition is $59.99 on PS5, Switch and Steam. The Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is $64.99, and if you already own the Switch version you can move up with a $4.99 upgrade pack, both prices straight from Nintendo's US store. Steam is knocking 10% off for launch, which puts the PC version at $53.99 for now. One small oddity: Steam lists the release date as September 16 for US players, while GungHo, Nintendo and Falcom all say September 17, so PC players may have found it unlocked a little earlier than expected.

Video: GungHo on YouTube

What the second chapter actually is

If you finished 1st Chapter, you know the setup. Estelle and Joshua have just put down the coup that shook the Kingdom of Liberl and earned their senior bracer ranks. Then, on the eve of the Queen's Birthday Festival, Joshua tells Estelle the truth about his past and disappears into the night. She sets off across the continent with his harmonica and a lot of stubbornness, and the shadowy society Ouroboros steps out into the open to push Liberl toward chaos. Falcom's own store description promises a capital in flames, a colossal airship over the skyline and something called the Shining Ring, which longtime fans will recognize and new players should not look up.

This is the same treatment the first remake got: rebuilt visuals, reorchestrated music and a batch of quality of life changes over the original, with full English and Japanese voice acting. The English cast returns with Stephanie Sheh as Estelle and Johnny Yong Bosch as Joshua, and the roster GungHo announced adds Matthew Mercer as Olivier and Liam O'Brien as Georg Weissmann, among others. Text is also available in French, German, Spanish, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Korean.

Combat gets more room to breathe than in 1st Chapter. There are new Crafts and S-Crafts, and a new Brave Rush lets you chain your characters' attacks together during Quick Battles. Outside of fights, the remake adds fishing, poker and cooking with your companions, and several fan favorite characters join as playable party members this time around. If you have clear data from 1st Chapter on the same platform, carrying it over hands you bonus items that smooth out the opening hours.

Editions, the Season Pass and PC specs

Beyond the standard edition there is a Digital Deluxe Edition that bundles the game with the Season Pass. The pass is cosmetic only: costume sets, hair colors, glasses, orbment covers and similar accessories, released in three drops. Seven items arrive today, eight more on September 24, and the final four on October 1. Every piece will also be sold separately on the day it comes out, so nobody is locked into the pass to get a specific outfit. We could not confirm a US dollar price for the Deluxe Edition from an official source, so we are not quoting one.

On PC the minimum spec is modest: an AMD Ryzen 5 1600, 8 GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 1050 for 1080p at 60 frames per second on the performance graphics profile. Falcom does not list a recommended spec beyond a 64 bit system. Full controller support is flagged on Steam.

Switch 2 owners are having a busy day, since Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave launches on the same console today. If you have to pick one, the honest answer depends on whether you finished 1st Chapter. This is not a jumping-on point, and Falcom does not pretend it is. But for anyone who did, 2nd Chapter is the payoff the first remake was quietly building toward, and it is nice to see it arrive on every current platform at once with the save carryover intact.