Following the success of the Dynasty Warriors Q&A section during Koei Tecmo’s official live broadcast on September 26, longtime producer and Omega Force president Tomohiko Sho has decided to respond to some of the unanswered questions that were sent in for the event. His responses are catalogued in the official Dynasty Warriors X account, which fans can look to for insights regarding the long-running hack-and-slash franchise.
Post translation:
Tomohiko Sho: Thank you very much for watching the Koei Tecmo official live broadcast the other day! Due to time constraints, there were many questions that we couldn’t answer in the “Now I Can Say It!? Dynasty Warriors Series Questions” segment. Since you went out of your way to send in your questions, I will gradually respond to them here (on X) in the future. As this is not a live broadcast, I will have to “restrain myself” in some aspects, so I kindly ask for your understanding!
Three questions have been answered so far: one about the possibility of a Dynasty Warriors: Origins collab café in Japan and two more about the games themselves. While there are currently no plans for a collab café (this could change depending on the frequency of fan requests), the answers Sho provides for the game-related questions are far more interesting.
The first game-related question focuses on Dynasty Warriors 3’s opening edit mode, in which general Xu Chu has a special scene separate from the rest of the cast. If you pick Xu Chu for the elephant scene, he gets a special animation where he charges forward with his hammer, throwing soldiers around in place of the elephant. Sho reveals that the CG designer at the time added this scene on their own initiative – and they were very particular about it being in the final game. He also reminisces on this episode on his personal X account, remarking that the opening edit mode has always been integral to the series.
The second game-related question revolves around faction colors. According to Sho, there were initially no plans to include faction colors, but rather to have main colors for each character. It was only after the suggestion of Keiko Erikawa, who was president of Koei at the time, that the developers agreed to add faction colors into Dynasty Warriors.
Sho says that he initially had mixed feelings about characters being associated with specific colors. Due to the influence of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, he “strongly felt” that Zhang Fei should be associated with the color red instead of green. However, he eventually understood that making each character’s faction clear from just a glance was a more logical design decision. That said, he insisted on keeping Zhang Fei’s iconic headband and breastplate red “as a personal touch.”
As Sho explains, the three designs shown in the official Dynasty Warriors post above were based on the color schemes of the original Dynasty Warriors game. However, he tells players to keep an eye out for Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered to see how they actually turned out.
Dynasty Warriors fans can expect more developer insights on the official Dynasty Warriors X account in the coming days, but they can also look to Sho’s posts on his personal X account for more information.
