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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III
Experience an epic story developed across three titles, and crafted for new and old fans alike. Also includes an interactive introduction to catch up new players to the ongoing story so anyone can dive right in to the world of Trails of Cold Steel.
What players say
Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-02 · quoted reviews as of 2026-05-13.
What reviewers agree on
29 of the 92 reviews raise this.
“Trails of Cold Steel III was unbelievably long. Extremely too long. Just completely unnecessarily long. That all said, it was a big step up from Cold Steel II, in part because Rean actually affirmatively stated his…”
“Trails of Cold Steel III is the third game in the Erebonia Arc continuing years after the second game. This time with improved visuals and gameplay mechanics. Introducing new core characters while revisiting real…”
“The biggest improvement i've seen from one entry to the next, this game is great, it heavily rewards your investment in the series by bringing back so many plot points from the sky and crossbell games while actually…”
19 of the 92 reviews raise this.
“Trails of Cold Steel III is the third game in the Erebonia Arc continuing years after the second game. This time with improved visuals and gameplay mechanics. Introducing new core characters while revisiting real…”
“Another great entry in Trails. Gameplay solid 8/10, nicely builds on CS2 but stands on its own. Awesome hype moments. Lots of resolved build-ups/questions for characters and story happenings. HOWEVER... the overarching…”
“Great game, the battle system overhaul was just what the franchise needed and most of the new characters are pretty good, would recommend to any JRPG fan but if you have made it this far in the franchise you already…”
12 of the 92 reviews raise this.
“Trails of Cold Steel III is the third game in the Erebonia Arc continuing years after the second game. This time with improved visuals and gameplay mechanics. Introducing new core characters while revisiting real…”
“They improved a lot in this game. Visuals, ui, quality of life features. Probably my fav from Erebonia arc for now. Got hooked on the story right away, and glad they toned down number of people in your class. And it's…”
“What an insane cliffhanger, Trails of Cold Steel 3 in my opinion is a major step up and improvement from the first 2 Cold Steel games, ESPECIALLY in design, music, gameplay. Only things I didn't like from this game were…”
8 of the 92 reviews raise this.
“Trails of Cold Steel III is the third game in the Erebonia Arc continuing years after the second game. This time with improved visuals and gameplay mechanics. Introducing new core characters while revisiting real…”
“What an insane cliffhanger, Trails of Cold Steel 3 in my opinion is a major step up and improvement from the first 2 Cold Steel games, ESPECIALLY in design, music, gameplay. Only things I didn't like from this game were…”
“Trails Soundtrack peaked here, but the story was getting too convoluted, and it went worse in CS4.”
3 of the 92 reviews raise this.
“Bloated but enjoyable. 80% typical Trails fluff and 20% actual story. Even with fast forward the entire time it still took over 70 hours. The game has major improvements where a guide isn't really needed anymore. Most…”
“They improved a lot in this game. Visuals, ui, quality of life features. Probably my fav from Erebonia arc for now. Got hooked on the story right away, and glad they toned down number of people in your class. And it's…”
“3/5 I played through the Trails of Cold Steel series over the course of the year, and while the UI and graphics noticeably improved between games 2 and 3, they all really deserve the same score. Decently fun gameplay…”
30 of the 92 reviews raise this · 23 of them still recommend the game.
11 of the 92 reviews raise this · 8 of them still recommend the game.
“Trails of Cold Steel III was unbelievably long. Extremely too long. Just completely unnecessarily long. That all said, it was a big step up from Cold Steel II, in part because Rean actually affirmatively stated his…”
“Bloated but enjoyable. 80% typical Trails fluff and 20% actual story. Even with fast forward the entire time it still took over 70 hours. The game has major improvements where a guide isn't really needed anymore. Most…”
“Easily my most disliked Trails game, it feels like a retread of the first CS with its awful pacing, but somehow even worse. You start with a pointless flashforward, there's another Tartarus wannabe but with none of the…”
4 of the 92 reviews raise this · 2 of them still recommend the game.
“Easily my most disliked Trails game, it feels like a retread of the first CS with its awful pacing, but somehow even worse. You start with a pointless flashforward, there's another Tartarus wannabe but with none of the…”
Counted across 92 English reviews, sampled to match this game's 91.1% positive rating · as of 2026-05-13
“Having played the entire Trails series on Steam, I can confidently say that Cold Steel III is an unforgettable experience. The leap in graphical fidelity from the second game is massive—the world of Erebonia has never looked more vibrant and detailed. But the real star here is…”
— a player, Steam review · 101 hrs played“Cold Steel 3 is an excellent JRPG, though as a primarily story driven one, you'll need to have played at least Cold Steel 1 & 2 as well as Azure and Zero in order to make any sense of things. Ideally, you'll have played the three games before that as well. The format is pretty…”
— a player, Steam review · 110 hrs played“I'm recommending this since it IS a necessary chapter in the Erebonian arc. But that said, it's my least favorite Trails game, and there's honestly nothing to see here if you've played Cold Steel 1&2, except to introduce new characters for the final, totally seperate game. The…”
— a player, Steam review · 110 hrs playedPlayer activity
Monthly average concurrent players. Live data self-collected from the Steam API · history through 2026-06 via SteamCharts.
Achievement stats
Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-09-05.
Price tracking
US-region pricing (USD), sampled twice daily by our own tracker since 2026-07-11. Steam prices vary by region — always confirm your local price on Steam.
Regional prices at last sample, in local currency — Steam sets each region's price independently.
Cheapest → most expensive, converted to USD at ECB reference rates (2026-09-04). Relative comparison only.
Latest official news
Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.
Trails of Cold Steel III Version 1.07 Patch Notes
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 circumstan
Daybreak II Coming Early 2025
About The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II + Wishlist today and stay tuned for updates leading up to the game's release! No longer threatened by the mafia organization Almata, the people o
Daybreak upcoming English release & Launch Purchase Options
About The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak After the war, Calvard is enjoying unprecedented economic prosperity. However, the public grows uncertain as the number of immigrants increases and
Trails of Cold Steel III Version 1.06 Patch Notes
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
Trails of Cold Steel III Version 1.05 Patch Notes
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 launch
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Screenshots
Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.
Facts & details
From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-05-13.
| Genres | RPG |
| Player tags | RPG · JRPG · Story Rich · Anime · Turn-Based · Great Soundtrack · Singleplayer · Adventure · Fantasy · Turn-Based Combat · Romance · Action (SteamSpy community voting) |
| Features | Single-player · Steam Achievements · Steam Trading Cards · Partial Controller Support · Steam Cloud · Remote Play on Phone · Remote Play on Tablet · Family Sharing |
| Languages | English * , French, Japanese * * |
| Achievements | 53 |
| Official site | http://thelegendofheroes.com/ |
Minimum system requirements (PC)
Minimum: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system OS *: Windows 10/8.1/7 64-bit Processor: Core i3-2100 3.10 GHz Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: Geforce GTX 650 Ti DirectX: Version 11 Storage: 25 GB available space Sound Card: Onboard