Read some translated stuff on the next Kiseki games by dualshockers from PlayStation Festa event held on March 9 in Korea:
Kondo mentioned that they’re working on the next main Kiseki series game, but that they also wish to make another new game linked to Trails of Cold Steel, to cover events that weren’t shown in the four Trails of Cold Steel games. The Kiseki series reaches its 15th anniversary this June, and we’ll learn more before then.
Kondo also mentioned they already decided in which region the next Kiseki main game will be set in: it’s the region where the Calvard Republic is based, in the east of the Zemuria continent. Stories about the eastern part of the continent were mentioned through the Kiseki games, and we’ll soon be able to see it ourselves.
Falcom is already hard at work on the next main Kiseki game, and seeing it’s a big game that will take a while, they decided to split the Kiseki development team in two, so fans won’t wait too long for another game. The second team is working on another game which should release sooner. This second team will basically handle side stories-like games, showing us elements in the Kiseki series we’ve always wanted to know, or letting us do things we’ve always wanted to do.
As usual in these kinds of events or interviews, Kondo also spoke about how Falcom is a relatively small company but full of talented people. He stated that he’s aware of how graphics aren’t Falcom’s strongest point, especially when they show their games at events, which makes them easily comparable with other studios’ works. He added that Trails of Cold Steel 3 was the first Kiseki game made specifically for PlayStation 4, without a Vita version, and so they tried to improve the graphics at that point. With Ys IX, they’ll try to improve the graphics even further, most notably through the use of motion capture, which they’re using to a certain extent. Falcom will keep trying to improve their games’ graphics over time, as together with 2D illustrations, graphics are the first things players notice.
At the same time, Kondo praised his team and mentioned how there aren’t many Japanese development studios nowadays who can release one 50-80 hours long RPG per year, a pace they’ve been keeping for at least 10 years now. He mentioned how Falcom usually takes one year to make a new RPG, and up to three if it’s really big.
Kondo mentioned how each Kiseki game usually has at least 20 hours of cutscenes. Spending two years of development on CG cutscenes and the like will make them look much better, but they don’t have that luxury. If they wanted to increase their quality, the time gap between each Kiseki game’s release would be much longer. So it’s a compromise they decided on. Kondo joked that if they decided to work longer on the games to increase the cutscenes’ graphics quality, they probably wouldn’t finish the Kiseki series before his death.