To close the year 2017, Dengeki held a number of interviews with top persons in the Japanese video game industry. One of them is Kenichi Ogasawara, the leader of Koei Tecmo Games’ Omega Force brand which is famous for making Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, and Toukiden series, as well as collaboration games such as Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, Dragon Quest Heroes, and Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom.
As Dengeki interviewed Ogasawara regarding Omega Force’s plans in 2018, they also included an interesting question about Toukiden, which has not seen any new expansions since Toukiden 2 was last released in Japan in July 2016 and internationally in March 2017. You can read the full interview below, which we have translated.
Dengeki: Please tell us how you looked back at your work and activities in 2017.
Ogasawara: Since it was the memorial year for Omega-Force’s 20th anniversary, we planned and executed a lot of policies. So when I look back at how far we’ve walked through, we really have a lot of related people and fans who have been supporting us, and I felt really grateful on that throughout the year.
Dengeki: Please tell us a game released/announced in 2017 that pertains to your own work, and also the reason why.
Ogasawara: Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age. It has content and volume fitting as a compilation for its 30th anniversary. I’m showing my respect to everyone who is related to the project and have made the game. The daily life of going back home and briefly progressing through the story was a really pleasant period for me.
Dengeki: Please tell us your main works as a brand leader.
Ogasawara: The main ones are definitely works related to titles that are still under development. But if I have to mention the important one, it’s for preparing a roadmap of titles for around the next 3 years. We decide on the directions for genres, IPs, and cooperations while considering the market situation, trends, and profit.
Dengeki: 2018 will be the 20th anniversary for Omega-Force, so we’d like to hear about future expansions for Omega-Force as well as Warriors series.
Ogasawara: First of all, not long after the new year starts, we will have Dynasty Warriors 9 and Attack on Titan 2 released in succession. We put our might to create both titles which should be suitable to mark the 20th-anniversary milestone, and they can also be enjoyed in the long term if you include additional contents (DLC). So please kindly don’t forget to pre-order!
Other than that, we’ve also started working on new numbered titles for this IP and that IP as well as new collaboration projects, so please kindly look forward to them!
Dengeki: Regarding the Toukiden series, shouldn’t it be about the time there’s a movement on it?
Ogasawara: We’ve made the core members start working on another new project, so I think it might take a bit more time until we can inform about the future of the [Toukiden] series. However, that new project is also rather surprising, so I’m looking forward to the day we can announce it!
As you can see in the final question, it looks like the core team members that worked on Toukiden are currently working on an unspecified new game. So while we might not be able to get anything new from Toukiden in the near future, we are also intrigued by the new game they are working on. Stay tuned as we anticipate Koei Tecmo to announce a lot more new games in 2018.
[Source: Dengeki PlayStation]
