Raid on Taihoku is a survival game set in WWII-era Taiwan

Written by. Ryuki Ishii based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-03-17 13:35 JST)

Taiwanese game developer Mizoriot Creative Company has officially announced Raid on Taihoku for PC (Steam).

Raid on Taihoku is a survival adventure game set in 1945 Taiwan. For around 50 years after the First Sino-Japanese war up until the end of World War II, Taiwan was under the control of Japan. As Japan’s losses mounted in WWII, Taiwan was also caught up in the war and subject to indiscriminate bombing from Allied forces. This attack is known as the Raid on Taipei (Wikipedia). This air raid is the theme of the game as players take on the role of Kiyoko Lin, a young girl searching for her family.

Kiyoko wakes up in a place covered with dead bodies. She’s wearing the uniform of the prestigious Taipei First Girls High School but can’t remember what happened or where her family is. Along with a dog named Kuro, she tries to escape the bombing while running into other characters and learning more about the state of Taiwan.

The game features a number of characters such as Judy, a Taiwanese girl who steals to survive. There’s also Dr. Ming-Zhi who studied abroad in Japan but was discriminated against, and Nakagawa, a police officer who changed his name to a Japanese name because of the influence of Japanization. There’s also Takeda, a Japanese person who follows Catholicism. Raid on Taihoku seems to bring together people with complicated backgrounds to paint a detailed picture of what Taiwan was like under Japanese rule. The Steam store page warns that the game includes “Frequent Violence or Gore” and “General Mature Content” so it will likely depict some severe subject matter.

Mizoriot Creative Company, perhaps better known as Mizo Games in the West, is actually known for making boardgames. They’ve released games such as Run Animals, Run!, Raid on Takao, and Frenemy Pastry Party. Raid on Taihoku was also made as a boardgame but is now being turned into a video game.

Not much has been revealed about the gameplay, but from what we can tell by the game’s Steam page and official Twitter account, there looks to be adventure sections where players talk to numerous characters and top-down action sections. The action sections look to involve things like running away from bombings and using an umbrella to block rocks thrown by bullies. It looks like a number of past buildings and structures are going to appear in the game as well, such as the Taiwan Grand Shrine which was destroyed. The game looks to deliver a realistic atmosphere of war and the human emotions that come with it.