Koei Tecmo, the publisher behind the Dynasty Warriors franchise, has recently trademarked five new titles within the series.
Koei Tecmo Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Japanese video game holdings company that first got its start in 2009 as a merger of both Tecmo and Koei. Both companies have published their fair share of worldwide hits, including Atelier, Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden, and Dynasty Warriors.
Koei began publishing Dynasty Warriors in 1997 and would go on to publish eight more games within the series with their latest, Dynasty Warriors 9, being released early 2018. It appears that Koei Tecmo is ready to expand upon the franchise with some new and interesting games, as it was recently revealed that it has trademarked five new titles.
While the exact direction of each game isn’t known as of yet, it’s good to see that Koei Tecmo is still invested in the franchise. Given that the publisher trademarked “Soccer Musō,” “Baseball Musō,” and “Tennis Musō” back in January of 2018, chances are high that these latest titles will have a lot of variation. It’s never easy to keep a franchise going, but if Koei Tecmo manages to keep interest high, it will show other game publishers the steps they need to take in order to ensure that their market share continues to grow over long periods of time.
According to Anime News Network, “Isekai Musō” (Other World Warriors), “Gakuen Musō” (Academy Warriors), “Musō Play” (Warriors Play), “Musō Mode” (Warriors Mode), and “Tensei Musō” (Reincarnation Warriors) have all been submitted for trademarking as of July 30. The publisher has released many spinoffs related to the Dynasty Warriors franchise, including The Warriors of Legend and Hyrule Warriors, among others.
While Koei Tecmo has been tight-lipped about its future plans for the franchise, this news seems to indicate that it is well on its way to publishing new titles that move away from the typical series.
Though it might seem as if Koei Tecmo is being a bit excessive with trademarking, it’s understandable given that there is a good chance that others would have used the same or similar titles before the company had it not registered them first. Given that publishers cancel releases all the time, these trademarks don’t guarantee that five games will actually be released. However, they do show that the company is committed to the franchise and its fans.
It’s always good to see a publisher who is willing to let its’ game designers create whatever they want within reason. The fact that there is such variation between these titles is a good indication that the company is more than willing to take chances and release games that are outside of their comfort zone.
