With the success of both Nioh and Nioh 2, Team Ninja has now ventured forth to create a new game with Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. The studio attended this year’s Tokyo Game Show with Wo Long already announced (alongside Rise of the Ronin), and we were fortunate enough to have had the chance to ask them a few questions about the game.

Interviewing Team Ninja is NextGen Player who attended TGS in-person, and he has managed to talk to Producers Fumihiko Yasuda (Nioh) and Masaaki Yamagiwa (Bloodborne with the help of a translator.

Q: I’m very interested to know what motivated the two of you to get into game development many, many years ago — and what inspires you today about being a producer within this dynamic industry?

Yasuda-san: I got into the games industry because I wanted to make worlds, this whole world view and place of my own creation, and making the story is a really part of it. I’ve been making a lot of different games at this point, the Nioh series and now Wo Long, but before that I thought, “I want to make games that go out to the world to as many people as possible.” Team Ninja worked with that, and we’ve made these great action games, and also bringing the games to everyone around the world. So it was a great choice for the types of games I wanted to make. My motivation, specifically, if kind of what you did, hearing players or fans saying I liked your game. That’s just so important to me, it means the world to me. Another motivation is when when we’re on the dev side, it could be an aspect of the game or the game itself, and you see all the ideas from everyone come together, meld together, in like this perfect entity that is the game. Sometimes you see that and think “wow” it just came together so beautifully. That’s a big motivator for me as well.

Yamagiwa-san: I love drawing, big fan of art when I was young. I had a friend that going to program and he said “hey can you draw me something?” So I did a pixel art drawing and my friend used his programming wizardry to make it move. I was just in awe of seeing something I created moving on screen. So that set me on that path to making games. In regards to motivation, I’m not super motivated as a person when it comes to myself, but once I’m doing things for others that’s where I get my inspiration and motivation. Whether that’s for the director, or the dev team, or players, that’s where my motivation comes from. Seeing them happy and doing the best for them that’s a big part for me. And one more thing, my friend is in the games industry and we haven’t made anything together, so at some point it’s a dream of mine to make a game together some day.

Q: The Three Kingdoms era spans many dynasties over many years, what made you decide to focus on the fall of the Han dynasty?

Yasuda-san: So specifically myself, and the Team Ninja dev team in general, wanted to make to make an action RPG–that’s a big focus for us. We thought what’s a good setting, and we thought how about this war-torn period. Looking at the Three Kingdoms and thinking which period, we wanted a turbulent era and that’s the reason why we chose that period. It’s also a good fit for an action-RPG. It’s also a very famous period, that world and that setting, it’s pretty well known and famous and that’s another reason for choosing it — people are very familiar with it. We thought if we could take this era and make it an action RPG it’d be really unique. That uniqueness was also a driving factor as well. But of course here at Koei Tecmo Games we’ve made a lot of games around the Three Kingdoms, so this was Team Ninja’s turn to say OK let’s see what our Three Kingdoms game looks like. But we want to make it through this dark fantasy land, it’ll be the darkest Three Kingdoms game that Koei Tecmo has ever made.

Q: How do you two go about researching on the histories, myths, culture and themes of the Three Kingdoms era? Is it reading books or traveling, or watching documentaries? For Wo Long, what balance do you want to strike between being historically accurate vs. leaning into dark fantasy elements?

Yamagiwa-san: At Koei Tecmo Games we’ve been making a lot of games in this period at this point, so we have this wealth of knowledge and experience that Team Ninja can draw from being here at Koei Tecmo Games. And specifically we have a scenario team and they have all of the information, just a well of information for the team to go and consult them to learn more and get all the details they need to make this the most accurate game. Accurate in terms of getting all the information at our fingertips. We also have Chinese staff at Team Ninja that have helped. They’ve been able to talk about their own experiences with Chinese history, living there, knowing about the culture and knowledge as well, so that’s been really really helpful. In terms of balance, the best way I can put it is we like making games based on historical fact, like Nioh which is based in history, but you’re seeing it from the sidelines or the back. You’re seeing things play out and seeing things you maybe didn’t know about. It’s hard to say–are there actually demons? Some people believe there are, some people maybe dont think there are. We don’t want to give an opinion on that. We wanted to make it a world where you felt like they exist, they would be in this world, I know they’re around here, it’s really important to create that feeling for this game. We also have many many Chinese demons that you fight in the game, it’s an important element of Wo Long, so we want the player to really believe that they exist and create a world that gives that to the player.

Q: Will this game be similar in tone to Nioh or are you going even darker? Are all the enemies and bosses inspired by Chinese mythology or did you also come up with your own twisted creations? Can we expect an abundance of variety?

Yasuda-san: So originally, Nioh was just going to have samurai enemies, there wasn’t going to be any kind of Yokai in it. But when I was making this game I thought “well, this isn’t very interesting and as fun as I wanted it to be, it doesn’t have enough variation in the type of enemies”, so then we said OK let’s add in Yokai, Japanese demons. In Wo Long, we’re focused on Chinese demons and having to fight them and overcome them it’s very easy, and I mean it in a good way, for the player to ‘get it’ — this is what I’m fighting, this big Chinese demons are what I need to go after. It’s easy for players to really get into the action. We’re making a dark game this time too, like we did with Nioh, that’s important, we’ve making a very dark experience that kind players expect. I want players to look forward to seeing what kind of demons will come up, what kind of monsters they’re going to have to take on. I think it’s interesting, perhaps most interesting, to rearrange some of those stories, to give our own twist on them. Looking at Chinese myths and legends and giving them that Team Ninja flair, or looking through the Team Ninja lens. Or going as far as saying going through the Wo Long lens, what would fit the Wo Long world we’re creating. You might see things you’re familiar with, legends and monsters, but then they’re going to have this new take on them. And it also our goal to rearrange them in such a way that makes them interesting for an action game when you’re fighting them. So when you’re fighting them they’re not completely true to their original story, we give them a little extra flair.

Q: A lot of fans of Souls-like experiences enjoy them for their high difficulty – they love the challenge and the satisfaction we get from beating a tough stage or boss. But there are also gamers who are interested in playing, but feel these games are too hard. Are there things the team is looking at, that don’t necessarily make the game more easier, but more accessible? For example, the way FromSoftware approached Elden Ring – it’s a very tough game, but they added new mechanics like calling spirit helpers that made it more “approachable” for new players.

Yamagiwa-san: We’re thinking it’s ‘good’ to have one set difficulty so that everyone has the same experience of overcoming a really intense obstacle and they all have that feeling of achievement, like I did it. But the caveat there is giving players all different ways that they can do that. So you could talk to your friends and say hey I beat this boss and this is how I did it, you want to talk to people and go online because you really want to have communication with them. It’s really important to keep the challenge the same and giving players different ways to overcome it. Wo Long is not an easy game by any means but we’re working to give players as much freedom and agency to play it as they want, overcome obstacles in their own way. One thing that comes to mind is the morale system. You have a morale rank and as you keep increasing it you get stronger and you can use that to choose which enemies to fight, or raise it up so you can take on a harder enemy and maybe they’ll be a little bit easier now that you’re stronger. You can also level up your character like a traditional action RPG and get stronger that way. There’s multiplayer as well, so you can get online with your friends, two other people so a total of three online and then take on bosses as a group. We’re really giving players their own ways to be able to tackle all these things, that’s really important to Wo Long’s game design.

Q: Are you planning on releasing a demo or beta version of Wo Long, and if so do you have timeframe for its release? We assume like Nioh, that Wo Long will have a multiplayer test before launch?

Yasuda-san: We’re announcing the demo so we’re really looking forward to that and hope everyone is excited. We want players to have as many options as possible when they’re approaching all the obstacles and challenges in the game, so the demo will help us see are there enough options, are player playing it in many different ways? We like getting this feedback from players to prove the game and make it the best they can be when it comes out at launch.

Q:Wo Long is going to be day one on Game Pass. What made the team want to go the Gamepass route and how, if it has, already benifitted you and your team?

Yasuda-san: This is a first for us being day one on Xbox Game Pass. While we’re making a really really hard game and we’re not sure what everyone will think of that, but by making it available day one on Game Pass so many players that maybe never played this game before will have a chance to do that and we’ll get even more players around the world than ever before. So yeah, this is a big first for us at Koei Tecmo Games and Team Ninja as well and it’s something we’re really excited about. We also think it’ll be really great for the multiplayer with so many people to play with and really increase the number of people you have available to join your party and take on bosses.

Q: Nioh 1 featured a PvP mode, but Nioh 2 didn’t. Will Wo Long see the return of a player vs player mode, or will it remain the same as Nioh 2 where player’s faced off against other character’s Revenants, who were AI controlled? 

Yamagiwa-san: There will be PvP in the game, for example a player or NPC coming into your world is one way we do that. You can go to other players’ worlds as well to fight in PvP. Also there will be areas you can place a flag there will be an enemy there and that enemy may be able to bring in regular NPC enemies or other players–and then you can decide, do I want to fight the player first or do I want to fight the big enemy? And if I beat the big enemy then everyone goes away. So you can decide what to do in that regard. 

Q: Are either of you involved with Rise of the Ronin? What did you think of the reveal trailer at this week’s PlayStation State of Play?

Yasuda-san: I’m providing direction on the game. This is our next big title after Wo Long. The feedback has been good from what we’ve seen and we’re very happy with it. Our plan is to release Wo Long and then release Rise of the Ronin, keep on going on that track and making these great games moving forward. The team at Team Ninja is really motivated with these two big games coming out next. We want to keep doing the best we can.

Q: Yamagiwa-san, it’s been 7 years since Bloodborne released and it’s still one of the most talked about games on Twitter and gaming forums – are you surprised by the high interest from fans so many years after launch?

Yamagiwa-san: I see it trending but always think “why?” (Laughs)

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty will be released sometime in 2023 for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC. A demo is available now for current-gen consoles.