Toukiden Producer Talks About How The Historic Hunting Game Came To Be

Omega Force are known for being the developers that are in charge of the Dynasty Warriors series. However, their upcoming PSP and Vita title, Toukiden, won’t have you fighting hundreds of enemies at a time, but giant demons instead. Producer Kenichi Ogasawara talks to Dengeki about the upcoming historical demon hunting game.

The Dynasty Warriors series and Toukiden both share similarities in having a historic essence. Unlike the hack and slash Dynasty Warriors games, Toukiden will be a hunting game, with an emphasis on history and their fight against demons (or Oni in Japanese folklore.) However, it wasn’t the original plan Omega Force had in mind.

“During the time of  Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce’s development, we were going after a multiplayer game that featured a Dynasty Warriors style to it,” Ogasawara said. “At that point, we were halfway between having a Dynasty Warriors game on one hand, and a multiplayer action game. That’s when we said ‘If we’re going to make a new title, let’s just go all out and make it into a multiplayer hunting-action game!’ and that’s how Toukiden was born.” .

In regards to the staff members who’ve worked on Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce, Dengeki asked whether they’re going with the exact same members for Toukiden.

Ogasawara answered, “Not everyone, but we have plenty of the core members. We actually started out with a game that closely resembled Strikeforce’s action, too, but we’ve adjusted it so it wouldn’t feel as fast. Furthermore, we’ve heard from fans that the brushed up sequel to Strikeforce was quite fun. We’re currently focusing on developing Toukiden, but we’d also like to challenge ourselves somehow, for the next Strikeforce title.”

Above is a look at some of the design work for the Mononofu warriors in Toukiden. Do you see any resemblances of characters from another series by Gust? If you guessed Atelier, you’re right! These designs for the Mononofu were actually done by Hidari, known for his illustrative work on Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist of Dusk. Here’s what Ogasawara had to say about how they ended up working together:

“All of Omega Force’s works tend to end up looking very similar to one another by the time they’re done, for some reason. We’re making a brand new title and it wouldn’t be our intent to make them look like characters from a Dynasty Warriors game. So, I was looking at a fellow group of ours, Gust [note: now a Tecmo Koei subsidary], and the design for their Atelier series. That’s when I noticed that they have a charm that we don’t have at Omega Force. I ended up asking, ‘Would our image completely change if we could get Hidari to do some drawings?’ and we were able to get something done.”

He continued: “Well, it’s not like we asked for it to be exactly the same as the Atelier series. Hidari has the ability to draw many different styles, so when I asked for something with a more serious drawing style, I saw it and thought, ‘This is good!’ and it stuck from there.”

We all know that the main enemies in Toukiden will be demons. So far, we’ve seen giant demons, but we’ll also be seeing many smaller ones, according to the producer. Not only will it require taking them down by aiming for certain body parts, but their actions will be clearly different from the smaller sized counterparts.

Most hunting games put a lot more emphasis on the multiplayer part of the game, leaving the single-player mode a little shorter. Toukiden will be quite the opposite, as Ogasawara says that the single-player mode will be longer and something that players won’t want to miss out on.

Toukiden will be released on June 27th for PlayStation Vita and PSP in Japan.