‘Dynasty Warriors: Origins’ Producer Says Less Fan Service Was “Not An Explicit Goal” But A Side Effect Of Game’s “Serious” Direction: “Sex Appeal Is Still Important, So The Team Worked Hard To Strike The Right Balance”
In seeking to assure fans as to the continued creative sanctity of their signature musou-style action games, Dynasty Warriors: Origins producer Tomohiko Sho says that the “reduced” fan service seen in the reboot compared to previous outings was not the result of some ideological censorship, but rather the dev team’s desire to produce a more “grounded” adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
The tenth entry in the Omega Force-developed, Koei Tecmo-produced hack-and-slash series, the fact that Dynasty Warriors: Origins puts players on the front-lines of the various conflicts that defined the end of China’s historical Three Kingdoms period is nothing new – after all, the series’ takes its interpretations of characters and events from aforementioned novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a romanticized retelling of this tumultuous real-world era originally penned by medeival Chinese author Luo Guanzhong.
(Fun fact: As Guanzhong wrote the novel roughly 1000 years after its recorded events took place, some historians question the exact accuracy of its historical recollections, with even noted Chinese historian Zhang Xuecheng speculating that the work was “seven-parts fact and three-parts fiction.” However, despite this, it is generally agreed that Romance of the Three Kingdoms‘ depictions of the era’s military thought, social customs, and so forth are near-perfect records of this period’s societal and political norms.)
However, what sets Origins apart from its predecessors is its approach to the material.
Rather than its campaign blitzing through the entirety of Romance of the Three Kingdoms in one go and leaning more into the anime with its aesthetic, the game chooses to take its time getting to the fall of the Wu Dynasty, instead presenting players with a more grounded (albeit still ‘video game-ified’) version of the story that only covers the first half of the novel.
And while not necessarily highlighted as part of the game’s marketing, one additional difference in Origins take on the franchise’s identity is that its versions of various female characters, like Sun Shangxiang, Yueying, and Diaochan, are dressed far less ‘fantastical’ than their previous counterparts, with their bare legs, cleave windows, and other such design elements being replaced with more realistic garb, and their respective ‘physics’ have also received a likewise downgrade.
Given the current state of puritanism that happens to be sweeping the globe, it came as little surprise that upon discovering the female-centric design changes, many players began questioning whether Omega Force or Koei Tecmo had chosen to begin deferring their character design intentions to the ever-changing whims of internet scolds.
But according to Sho, it seems this was far from the reality of the situation.
Sho, who currently serves as President of Dynasty Warriors developers Omega Force and has previously provided his talents as lead designer and producer to the entirety of series’ core line, offered insight into this topic while speaking with 2chan imageboard founder and current 4chan owner Hiroyuki Nishimura about Origins for the latest entry of I Tried Treating Hiroyuki to a Game, a regular feature hosted by Den Fami Nico Gamer in which the Japanese news outlet presses the eponymous internet icon as to his thoughts on whatever title happens to be currently catching his interest.
Per a translation of the interview provided by ChatGPT, pressed by Hiroyuki, “This game gives off the impression that there’s less fan service than usual—was that intentional, or just how things turned out?”, Sho explained, “It wasn’t that we set out with the explicit goal of reducing fan service. Rather, we focused on maintaining the overall tone of the game, and our general approach was to remove anything that didn’t quite fit.”
“That said, well… some [yaoi]-esque elements and puns still snuck in,” he then laughed. “But aside from that, the way we presented the characters—their personalities and dialogue—could be described, in simple terms, as more serious or grounded. We had a clear goal to highlight the appeal of Romance of the Three Kingdoms as much as possible. And since we were aiming to create a story that players could really get immersed in, the fan service elements naturally ended up being reduced.”
Subsequently met with the observation from Hiroyuki that “Even in fighting games, female characters often end up having fan servicey elements added. So I felt like your decision not to go that route was a deliberate and thoughtful one,” the Dynasty Warriors mainstay assured, “For example, with Sun Shangxiang, we felt that forcing fan service just didn’t suit this title. And as for Diao Chan, her role in the story is very important and serious, so we were quite clear about the direction we wanted for her.”
Asked by his host “Diao Chan’s the kind of character that could still work even if you made her super fan service-y, though, right?”, Sho further detailed, “In this version, Diao Chan has a unique background—for instance, she’s been trained in martial arts—so we wanted to make sure her outfit looked realistic for someone who can actually fight. If we forced fan service into her design, it would feel out of place during combat, so we intentionally tried to minimize it.”
Ostensibly aware of just how bombastic this admission could come off devoid of further context, the producer made sure to explicitly note that “Of course, sex appeal is still an important element, so the team worked hard to strike the right balance.”
“That said, looking at the big picture, it might just be that I personally love old-man and grandpa characters, and since the team spent a lot of energy on them, the fan service side naturally took a back seat,” he laughed once more, this time as he and Hiroyuki moved to draw this portion of the conversation close. “This time around, we also put a lot of effort into making the old guys as appealing as possible. Even the few female characters—we made sure they blended in naturally among all the old men, and I think we found a good balance there.”
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