Omega Force was founded in 1996 as the fourth Business Division of Koei, with the intention of widening the appeal of Koei's portfolio outside of their strategy and simulation games, such as Romance of Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition. Kenichi Ogasawara originally joined Koei in hopes of being able to work on Nobunaga's Ambition, of which he was fan, as a planner. Due to his lack of programming skills he was assigned to a training course to become a programmer, whilst porting games from NEC PC-9801 to the Super Nintendo. Ogasawara, after being promoted to planner, was then tasked by Koei to create a 3D action game utilising the technological capabilities of the PlayStation. This resulted in the development of Dynasty Warriors and the establishment of Omega Force.[4]
The studio was originally going to be named after the letter Z, however this idea never came to fruition as the letter Z can have different meanings outside of Japanese culture. Wanting to keep the last letter of the alphabet, they settled for Omega from the Greek alphabet. However, because of copyright concerns with the clock manufacturing company Omega SA, Force was added – a Japanese homophone for "fourth" – representing that they are the fourth business division.[4]
In 2016 Kenichi Ogasawara mentioned during an interview with Famitsu that the next entry in their key franchise Dynasty Warriors, titled Dynasty Warriors 9, was in development. He hoped to have a greater impact with Dynasty Warriors 9, as he mentioned "the evolution from Dynasty Warriors 7 to 8 was insufficient".[9] Producers Masaki Furusawa and Akihiro Suzuki planned to overhaul the franchise's often criticized combat system.[10][11] In 2018, Omega Force released Dynasty Warriors 9, moving the franchise from its arena-based combat to an open-world.[10]
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the third collaboration project between Omega Force and Nintendo, released in 2020, became the best-selling Warriors game,[12] as well as the developer's best-selling title, shipping over 4 million copies as January 2022.[13]
In 2022, Omega Force announced a partnership with Electronic Arts, along with its parent company Koei Tecmo. Their new game, Wild Hearts, would be published under their EA Originals label.[14] The game was officially announced on September 23, 2022.[15]Wild Hearts' director, Kotaro Hirata, mentioned that Dynasty Warriors has become a pillar franchise for Omega Force, and that with Wild Hearts, they wanted another strong pillar franchise for Omega Force, hoping to widen their audience, and create more internationally appealing titles.[16] EA's Andrew Wilson mentioned in an investor meeting, that the success of Monster Hunter led to EA greenlighting the title.[17]
Games
Koei, the main developer and publisher of Warriors series before being merged with Tecmo in 2009
Warriors games
The Warriors series, known in Japan as the Musō (無双, lit. "Unrivaled") series, is an action game series created by Omega Force and published by Koei Tecmo. The meta-series contains various series, such as the Dynasty Warriors games, the One Piece: Pirate Warriors games, and various spin-offs.
Dynasty Warriors, known in Japan as Sangokumusou (三國無双, Sangokumusō, lit. "Three Kingdoms Unrivaled"), is the first and the largest Warriors subseries. In Japanese, all games after Dynasty Warriors 2 carry the Shin · Sangokumusou (真・三國無双, Shin · Sangokumusō, lit. "True · Three Kingdom Unrivalled") title, but English localizations continue to use Dynasty Warriors, putting all international releases a number ahead of their Japanese counterparts.
Logo of Koei Tecmo after the merger in 2009, introduced in 2016
Samurai Warriors, known as Sengokumusou (戦国無双, Sengoku Musō, lit. "Unrivaled Warring States") is the series based loosely around the Sengoku ("Warring States") period of Japanese history.
Warriors Orochi, known as Musou Orochi (無双OROCHI, Musō Orochi) in Japan, is a series developed by Koei and Omega Force. It is a crossover of Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors.
