Nioh’s producer says he would have been fired if he weren’t his own boss as he looks back on the game’s 12-year-long development period 

Koei Tecmo founder and CEO Yoichi Erikawa, also known by his game creator pseudonym Kou Shibusawa, recently reminisced about the development of Nioh in an interview with Denfaminicogamer. The acclaimed action RPG came out in 2017, but famously took 12 years to launch after its initial announcement, going through a drawn out and sporadic development process. Erikawa gives some insight into the main cause of this – which happens to be himself. 

Talking to Denfaminicogamer, Erikawa says that to this day, he continues to do the final check of games coming out of Koei Tecmo, and the main thing he looks for is whether a game delivers “a new form of entertainment value” or not. When he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, he asks for things to be remade. Erikawa calls Nioh a “classic example” of this tendency of his. He was the creator of the Nioh IP and general producer of the title, and he had the game scrapped and remade a whopping three times until it met his vision. 

“Development took 12 years. If it were someone working under me doing this, they would have been fired,” Erikawa jokes, before adding that Nioh was “a game I pursued self-indulgently.” 

At the same time, he doesn’t seem to regret it, commenting, “Even so, after remaking it three times, we put out a good game. Nioh was created when Koei and Tecmo merged, and it combined the strengths of both companies into something entertaining. As you know, Koei’s forte was historical games, while Tecmo excelled at action games.” 

For extra context, Nioh’s development first started in 2004, and at this point, it was still being handled only by Koei staff, as the merger with Tecmo came in 2008. The merger coincided with Nioh’s first (and most JRPG-like) build being scrapped and development being reassigned to Dynasty Warriors series developer Omega Force. The second build, headed by Omega Force, ultimately ended up being scrapped as well, after which Tecmo’s Team Ninja (developer of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive) took over most aspects of development, steering the game into heavier action. 

Back in 2016, Nioh’s creative director Fumihiko Yasuda told Eurogamer that earlier versions of Nioh didn’t live up to Erikawa’s vision, and while he did let Team Ninja do their thing after they took over, he would constantly playtest the game himself, so they could “feel his watchful eyes” on them.  

As a result, however, Nioh was a hit, especially among global audiences. Nioh and its sequel sold nearly 8 million copies, almost 90% of which came from the West.  

On a related note, Erikawa encourages a policy of company executives doubling as game producers at Koei Tecmo.