Road To Empress’ Producer On Tapping The FMV Gaming Well
The 80s and 90s were rife with many niche gaming genres, but none more flashier and progressive than the FMV game. You have your Dragon’s Lair from Don Bluth, a fully-animated masterpiece quarter muncher arcade title, to adventure titles like the Tex Murphy and Phantasmagoria horror series. Just like most niche genres, it has its fair share of hits and duds, as well as its fans whether they adore its campiness genuinely or ironically.
After years and decades of absence, it seems as if the gaming scene in China wants to take a stab at it; at least for developers New One Studio. Road To Empress is the game that harnesses this classic technique of game-making and film-generating, albeit with contemporary tech and a mobile-in-mind model. Its setting and narrative is unique, at least from the outside: you step in the shoes of a legendary empress and experience her extraordinary life filled with desire, darkness, betrayal, and redemption. In short, the kind of cocktail you want for a live-action game with multiple recordings of pre-determined decisions and pathways.
We talk to New One Studio Demi Guan about the upcoming title, why it’s heading the FMV route, and the effort it takes to recreate this bygone era of gaming.
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Why do FMV games? That is such a retro genre to handle in today’s modern gaming landscape.
Our team at New One Studio has been researching cinematic interactive drama since 2017. Although this is still a relatively niche category globally, I believe there’s a lot of room for exploration and development. Narrative works can offer rich storytelling, strong emotional impact, and immersion. Live-action filming can elevate the performance and authenticity of scenes to another level, providing players with a “stage” where they can take autonomous control of the plot—while also offering them a high degree of freedom and diverse thematic depth.
Our first interactive drama, The Invisible Guardian, was fortunate enough to receive support from many players. This encouraged us to search for new themes, which ultimately led to this new interactive drama, Road to Empress.
As the saying goes, fashion is cyclical—now it’s time for a retro genre to shine once again.
How costly is the tech and behind-the-scenes shooting for Road To Empress?
We can’t disclose the overall production cost, but we can share that we placed great emphasis on refining the product.
Road to Empress was filmed in 4K with professional actors, supported by extensive historical research to ensure authenticity in costumes, props, and set design. Filming took nearly four months, followed by about eight months of post-production. In parallel, the design and development of product features spanned more than ten months.
What games and films influenced Road to Empress? Also, are there any directors in filmmaking you are fond of?
This project is primarily inspired by the real history of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in ancient China. In Road to Empress, players step into the role of the protagonist, beginning her journey as a young girl entering the palace and experiencing how she gradually rises to become empress. Depending on the choices players make, the story can branch into very different outcomes.
To achieve this, we drew on classical Chinese literature as well as documentaries about Wu Zetian herself. Since there are relatively few live-action interactive dramas on the market, we also revisited our previous work, The Invisible Guardian, extracted the lessons we learned from it, and applied them to this new project.
As for film directors, I particularly admire Zhi Zhu—the female director of this new project—who has a remarkable eye for classical Chinese aesthetics. I’m also a great admirer of Ang Lee. His cross-cultural perspective and delicate character portrayals are exactly what we strive to present in Road to Empress—depicting Wu Zetian not only as a symbol of power, but also as an extraordinary woman struggling to thrive in a patriarchal society.
Post-launch, what are the game’s content plans and monetization structure?
Our game is divided into two parts. The “Part 1” is scheduled for release on September 9. After that, we will immediately begin development of the second part, which we plan to launch around the Chinese New Year of the following year.
In terms of monetization, we’ve adopted a lightweight approach. Beyond the product’s buy-to-play model, players can also participate in voting events in the product to support their favourite characters. Additionally, we plan to offer related merchandise.
Will the game be out beyond Asian territories? If so, how would marketing and promo work?
We plan to launch globally on 9th September in most regions worldwide. To ensure our localization and operational experience is optimal across different markets, certain regions will gain access to the product gradually following the initial launch.
For marketing, in addition to the upcoming new promotional trailer, we will conduct product presentations and invite media and content creators to provide reviews and participate in other events, aiming to showcase the product’s unique charm to users from different cultural backgrounds through various perspectives.
Road to Empress will be out for PC, iOS, and Android devices this September.
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