Koei Tecmo, the publisher behind the Nioh and Dynasty Warriors series, is reportedly looking to lean further into AAA development, and focus more heavily on the PC and console markets.
The news comes from the company’s shareholders Q&A briefing, as reported by Automaton. Back in April the company established a brand-new studio that was intended to work on AAA games. The currently unnamed studio is let by Yosuke Hayashi, who’s worked on the likes of Dead or Alive, Nioh, Fatal Frame, Hyrule Warriors, and more.
It seems like that was just the first step in Koei Tecmo’s plan, as during the shareholders Q&A a company representative noted the company plans to introduce a development framework that would allow it to “steadily produce AAA titles,” with a focus on “yearly releases of major titles.” Staggeringly, however, the company is looking to double its scale, going from its currently roughly 2500 employees, to 5000 employees eventually. It’s also worth noting, back in April 2022, the company gave a 23 percent wage increase to all of its employees, across the board.
A large part of Koei Tecmo’s new focus is that it expects the console and PC game market to grow due to new hardware releases, combined with mobile gamers migrating over to those systems – specifically pointing out the recent success of Chinese and Korean games (like Black Myth Wukong). In regard to the mobile market, Koei Tecmo believes “significant growth is unlikely to be seen.”
How exactly this pans out remains to be seen, but Koei Tecmo does already have a few games in the pipeline. Dynasty Warriors Origins looks to be a massive return for the company’s flagship franchise in January 2025, and there’s a smattering of smaller AA titles on the way as well, including Fairy Tail 2, Atelier Yumia, and Atelier Resleriana. This year also saw the release of Team Ninja’s Rise of the Ronin.
Koei Tecmo has also enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Nintendo on games like Hyrule Warriors, Fire Emblem Warriors, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses – and with the release of the Switch 2 looming that partnership could grow even more.
