Koei Tecmo wants to prioritize AAA games and to further distance itself from the mobile market

Koei Tecmo is one of the biggest and most important Japanese gaming companies, as it’s responsible for the creation of multiple iconic franchises, like Dynasty Warriors, Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden and more. Fortunately for fans of the company, it recently disclosed its plans to keep prioritizing these type of products.

In a new Q&A document for its shareholders (which Automaton translated into English), Koei Tecmo detailed its expectations for the future of the gaming market. The company explained to shareholders how it “expects the console and PC game market to grow,” especially after the recent release of new and more powerful hardware.

On top of that, Koei Tecmo also noted how the mobile gaming market is already mature enough and “significant growth is unlikely to be seen”, citing as an example the recent growth in AAA home console releases that we saw in countries like South Korea and China. Although the company’s representatives didn’t list any specific games, Stellar Blade and Black Myth: Wukong are two prominent examples of this phenomenon.

Koei Tecmo is clearly pivoting to the development of AAA games for PC and home consoles, as it plans to “steadily produce AAA titles” in the near future. In order to achieve this goal, the company is aiming to increase its workforce, as it now has 2500 employees, but it plans to hire at least 5000 people in total. All of this is not much of a surprise since, as it disclosed in the Q&A, Koei Tecmo recently opened a new in-house AAA studio and has refined a new high-quality game engine known as the Katana Engine, which is so flexible that the company is confident it’ll “reduce development costs and improve quality.”

Can Koei Tecmo keep all of its promises?

In a day and age in which more and more companies prefer to create low-budget games that can rack up a lot of money via gacha systems and microtransactions, it is a breath of fresh air to see one of Japan’s biggest players favoring AAA experiences for PC and home consoles instead. Koei Tecmo does have a history with mobile gaming, but it never committed to the format as much as other eastern companies.

There have been a few re-releases of its classic games, some mobile installments in franchises like Dead or Alive and Dynasty Warriors and its most recent endeavor, the iOS and Android ports of Atelier Resleriana. It would be a bad move from Koei Tecmo to flat out ignore the mobile gaming market, but based off of its recent output, it’s evident it has been prioritizing AAA home console games in recent years.

In 2024, Team Ninja (a division of Koei Tecmo) released Rise of the Rōnin, a 3D action-adventure PlayStation 5 exclusive that received positive reviews from critics and gamers. It’s also planning to release Fairy Tail 2 on December 11, the second open-world RPG based on the classic manga series by Hiro Mashima.

On top of that, Koei Tecmo plans to release more AAA games throughout 2025, like Atelier Yumia, Venus Vacation Prism, and its most promising new project: Dynasty Warriors: Origins, the first new entry in this iconic Musou franchise in 6 years, and an ambitious game that will offer a much-needed return to formula. If it can deliver on all of these new games (especially Dynasty Warriors: Origins), Koei Tecmo’s plans to further delve into the AAA gaming market will work just fine.