From Fantasy to Reality: Our Partnership With NIS America

Well, here we are. Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure are being officially localized, and the Geofront has partnered with NIS America to make it happen. We reached an agreement with NIS America and, now, our text—the text you have seen in our localization patches—will serve as the basis for the official releases of the Crossbell duology. Each and every member of our team is thrilled about this opportunity because it’s the culmination of our driving motivation:

To ensure Crossbell gets the localizations it deserves so that people can experience these engaging, touching, wonderful games.

As you may have noticed, our patches for Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure are no longer available on our website. Some might be disappointed by that, but we would enthusiastically request you to support the official releases instead.

We couldn’t be more excited for what the future holds for us and for the Crossbell games. To celebrate that, we thought that we would round up some of the Geofront members (and a special guest) to talk about what this announcement means to them!

Statement from Zerker, Project Lead of Trails from Zero:

When I asked Gu4n if he could use some help on Trails from Zero, I never imagined that we’d make it to this point—to the point where our work is being used to bring Crossbell over officially. It’s funny, really. There were points during Trails from Zero’s first editing pass when I’d dread about the possibility of official localizations being announced out of the blue, dashing our hard work prematurely. I desperately wanted us to be able to finish our work before it reached that point.

And…we did. Somehow—for some reason—everything has worked out. Not just worked out, but worked out in the best possible way. The Geofront was able to release two localization patches that we can be immensely proud of, and we have the opportunity to partner with NIS America to bring these lovely games over officially now. Whenever I sit down and really think about it, I’m speechless. Just absolutely floored.

Thank you, NIS America, for partnering with us. And thank you, Geofront, for being the best, most talented group of people I’ve ever had the pleasure to call my friends.

Statement from omgfloofy, Geofront co-founder/Esterior.net Administrator:

I think I have an apology to make.

By saying, “We won’t sell to anyone, there’s too much red tape,” I was inadvertently lying to everyone—even to myself because, quite frankly, I honestly thought it was that way for sure. That there were too many people involved both with us and before us. To me, this would be a nightmare project to accomplish and realize as a fully licensed release. Who would be willing to go out of their way to not only work with all of us involved with the Geofront, but the previous team that worked on the games, as well?

I mean, I guess I can now say that NIS America absolutely would. And they really delivered—to not only us, but everyone else. I legitimately did not expect this to go the way it has, and everyone with NIS America has blown away my expectations. We’ve been in communication with them—though some of us have not been as active as others (coughlikemyselfcough)—and the team working with the games has been amazingly receptive to everything we’ve done and what we want to discuss with them regarding the games.

Beyond just their willingness to work with us, I was over the moon to see that not only did they keep our titles (which we had very specific reasons as to why we went with “Trails from Zero” and “Trails to Azure”)—but they also kept what was done for our Azure logo, while adopting that style into the Zero logo. (By the way, those logos are amazing!)

I’m so excited that all of this will be able to go out far beyond just the people we’ve reached through our patch. As a result, this means that those of you who have wanted it, but didn’t want to play on PC can finally have the chance to play these wonderful games!

Statement from Guren, Original lead translator of Trails from Zero & Trails to Azure:

Hi, everyone.

As you just read, sometimes what seems impossible can become reality. When all hope is lost and Crossbell seems to be a piece of the Kiseki story you’ll never experience in an official way, NIS America comes knocking at the Geofront’s door and stuff happens. It took a long time for all of the pieces to come together for various reasons; however, now it’s official and you can start waiting for those ETAs. 

Personally, I’d like to thank the old comrades-in-arms who made Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure less obscure and more accessible for people to play, the Geofront, for the amazing job they did using our old work as a base for their much improved versions and for getting in contact with the previous team to discuss these possibilities. And, of course, a very big thank you to NIS America for the nice things to come our way in the future. 

Statement from Ribose, Programmer/Testing Lead of Trails from Zero & Trails to Azure:

“This series set my path in life with its incredible focus on attention to detail. I was led to finding a community—a group of friends and passionate fans. Together, we made two wonders we can be eternally proud of.”

To expand on this message you may have found in Trails to Azure‘s finale, there are few things that have changed my life quite as much as this pair of games. I found the series six years ago now, and I believe I was in just the right place to meet the right people who could make it happen. 

And in December of 2016, we set out with the goal of making these two games be accessible with as high-quality of an overall experience as we could. The team changed and grew just like the projects, but from the outset, we wanted to embrace the best parts of the other English entries in the series. Which to many of us was the passionate teams who “did it right” as opposed to “fast” or “first.” And now it turns out we also won’t be the last.

So, please enjoy these two wonders in ways that we couldn’t have dreamed of.

Statement from Scott, Project Lead of Trails to Azure:

That’s a hard act to follow, isn’t it?

Leading the Geofront’s Trails to Azure was a dream come true, but seeing this partnership come to fruition is something unfathomable. I cried tears of joy the day I read NIS America’s proposal to us. I was overwhelmed at the thought of my name being immortalized in my favorite game of all time…forever.

This experience—it’s something that can’t happen in other mediums. You can be the biggest fan of the first Star Wars film in the world, but you’ll never have your name attached to the original as a director or writer. But it’s possible in localization. The game I fell in love with years ago, the game I surrendered over a year of my life sacrificing my heart and soul to… We will forever be linked. I was the lead editor of the official localization of my favorite game ever, and there are no words to describe how happy or proud that has made me.

Selfishly, I’ve seen us—the Geofront—as the stewards of Crossbell. Trails of Cold Steel III and Trails of Cold Steel IV may feature Crossbell City, but Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure are where its spirit resides. And now, two of the most ambitious unlicensed localizations ever have gone to live with the stars. Today, we grant NIS America the key to the city and take a bow. 

While our time with Crossbell may have come to an end, we know everyone on NIS America’s localization team working on these two games will preserve the love and care we put into them. They have welcomed us with open arms, because, at the end of the day, we aren’t as different as we seem. We all have so much passion for what we do—and it shows. Now, more people around the world will finally get to experience these two masterpieces in English and see the passion that both teams have put into getting Crossbell over the language barrier. 

That is a cause worth celebrating.

So, thank you. Thank you to NIS America for granting us this opportunity, to our friends and family that supported us, and to every fan that believed in us and spread positive word of mouth about our work. We never would have made it this far without you. We sincerely hope you’re as proud of us as we are of you for helping make this possible. And, for one last time…

Please look forward to Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure.