Falcom's 45th anniversary exhibition tour dates are set

Nihon Falcom has locked in the dates and venues for its 45th-anniversary exhibition tour, kicking off at Akihabara's Gran En-tas on October 17. The publisher initially teased the celebration back in March to mark its 1981 founding, and now Nihon Falcom has outlined exactly where the pop-up galleries are heading. Looking at the schedule and the list of rare PC big boxes on display, once again, I wish I was in Japan.

Life-size weapons and vintage cardboard

The event is free to enter and focuses heavily on the company's early days in the PC market. The showcase features a massive historical timeline covering four and a half decades of game development, alongside rare promotional posters and vintage PC software. Seeing original PC-88 or PC-98 releases of early Dragon Slayer and Ys games in person is a treat, considering how fragile those oversized cardboard boxes are today.

The exhibition also includes the life-size weapon replicas that Falcom recently displayed at Tokyo Game Show 2026. Attendees can get a close look at the physical props before leaving a note for the developers on the official message boards.

Taking the show on the road

The tour is organized by Tablier Marketing in cooperation with merchandise manufacturer Cospa. After wrapping up its initial run at the Akihabara Onoden building on November 1, the exhibition packs up and moves through Cospa's Gee! Store retail chain across the country.

It hits Sendai from November 7 to 15, then moves to Osaka from December 5 to 13. The tour picks up in Nagoya from January 9 to 17, 2027, and concludes in Kokura from January 23 to 31.

Four decades of action RPGs

Falcom is one of the oldest active video game developers in Japan, founded by Masayuki Kato. Before the Famicom dominated the living room, Japanese PC gaming was a distinct ecosystem, and Falcom thrived there. Games like Xanadu sold massive numbers on home computers, effectively writing the blueprint for the action RPG genre in the 1980s.

You can't talk about Falcom without mentioning the music. Falcom Sound Team jdk has been producing some of the most energetic rock soundtracks in the industry since the late 1980s. While the announcement doesn't specify the audio setup for the venues, an anniversary exhibition is the perfect excuse to blast the Ys I & II soundtrack out of retail store speakers.

Today, the studio is best known for the Trails series, which started in 2004 with Trails in the Sky. It has grown into a massive, interconnected universe that requires a dedicated wiki just to keep the political factions straight. A 45-year retrospective is a lot of ground to cover, especially when half of that timeline is occupied by a single continuous conflict in the Zemurian continent.