Have you killed thousands of mindless soldiers lately? No? Then let KOEI fill in that void with yet another Dynasty Warriors 6 game. PSP will be getting a new version of Dynasty Warriors 6, based on the PS2 game of the same name. The enhanced port will include ad-hoc multiplayer, new costumes and Meng Ho from the newly-released Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires.

The PSP game is currently only announced for Japanese release, but a US release is likely. KOEI has released almost every Dynasty Warriors game in the States, with a notable exception of Warriors Orochi Z.

According to what Gigazine claims to be scans from the Nikkei Corporate Quarterly (a book that provides snapshots of information about Japanese companies), the new Tecmo Koei Holdings is planning to combine IP in at least one new game.

Andriasang translated the relevant blurb: "New Games: Will release games that combine Tecmo and Koei titles. The aim is to reach fans of both." The identity (or number) of games, and the identity of the titles that Tecmo and Koei plan to merge are unknown, which means we can amuse ourselves briefly by coming up with our own, like Dead or Alive: Xtreme Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Rygar's Ambition, Dynasty Monster Ranchers, Gitaroo-Man Gaiden Sigma, and Mighty Bomb Genghis Khan.

We've checked in with the North American branches of both Koei and Tecmo in an effort to find any additional details about the plan.

[Update: Tecmo declined to comment, indicating that the US office didn't know any more than we did about this.]

How unfair is it that Warriors Orochi Z isn't coming to North America?! So unfair, especially since the first 25 games, known as Warriors Orochi A-Y, were such major hits here. OK, clearly we know nothing about the series, but it seemed worth mentioning Siliconera's confirmation that the compilation won't make it across the Pacific.

Actually we do know a little something about Warriors Orochi Z: when it released in Japan, it beat down Resident Evil 5 on the sales charts. Our condolences go out to the unspecified number of people devastated by Z news. There's always importing -- and learning Japanese.

Koei has a reputation for being a Dynasty Warriors factory and, considering people in the West don't get the series, the company's offerings largely go unnoticed. Eager to change that, Koei discussed with us their plans to release a new game, Warriors: Legends of Troy, which will be a part of the Warriors series developed for PS3 and 360 by western developers with a western audience in mind.

The project is being handled by Koei Canada, a relatively new developer which started out life as a CG only studio, before becoming a software house in 2005. The company developed Fatal Inertia and ported Warriors Orochi over to the PSP, but Legends of Troy is their real coming out party.

Targeting a release around Spring of 2010, Warriors: Legends of Troy shifts the setting from the classic tale Romance of the Three Kingdoms -- which is far more well known in the East -- to the Trojan War. Koei Canada is hoping that this change in setting will make people in the West a lot more interested in the title. But that's not the only thing that makes it different from a Dynasty Warriors title.

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme. Beauty and the Poké beast -- oh, sorry, the Monster Racer beast. We witnessed a young booth babe giving an assist to a creature that was shuffling along the show floor. We'd look up the name of the creature -- which could barely see where it was going (poor guy) -- but we're not aware if there's a Monster Racer "Pokédex" to see if the creature is supposed to be blind or if it just liked holding the pretty lady's hand.

Dear Koei,

Things are great, and so far infection-free here at E3. Sure, we miss your quirky style, who wouldn't? Still, we're keeping ourselves busy readying games for the show, including Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, which ships for the PlayStation 3 this fall.

Other games we've got at our booth this year include Family Fun Football on the Wii, action game Undead Knights for the PSP, and -- oh -- did you know we were making a basketball game? It's true! We've got several downloadable titles this year, including a "contemporary retro" arcade-style basketball game called NBA Unrivaled and an action puzzler named Puzzlegeddon, both we hope to hit XBLA and PSN later this year.

Team Ninja's PS3-exclusive "art nouveau" shooter, Quantum, and the musical 2D platformer Fret Nice will also be on hand, though neither are expected to ship until sometime next year. All in all, we've got a lot of games to show off -- plus without any Dynasty Warriors games blocking our view we've got a clear shot those Ninja Gaiden models. Oo la la!

Wishing you were here,

Tecmo

Swine Flu may be keeping Koei-Tecmo (well, really just the Koei side) from heading to E3 next month, but it won't keep the company away from North America forever. In fact, Koei-Tecmo plans to have a stronger presence in the West, shifting its focus onto more original, Western-aimed IP. "Our expansion into the Western market is the most important part of our mid-term plan," Koei CEO Kenji Matsubara told MCVUK, citing the yearly decline of the Japanese market as a major factor.

Koei's Canadian studio in Toronto will receive the bulk of the workload on these new IPs -- which means the strictly-Japanese work ethics currently at the studio will probably have to go. Hopefully though, it won't get rid of all its ethics.

During a recent interview with 1UP, ex-Tecmo employee and leather lover Tomonobu Itagaki (along with comrades Hiroaki Matsui, Katsunori Ehara, and Yoshifuru Okamoto) iterated that he is returning to gaming, and will be backed up by a brand new team on a project for a future game. Unfortunately, we won't see anything on this new game at next week's E3, although Itagaki did confirm he would be in attendance.

The new company is tentatively called "Tokyo Vikings" (how ... appropriate) and is largely comprised of ex-Team Ninja staff, including a majority of the folks who worked on Ninja Gaiden 2. Surprisingly, his new team even managed to snag some key character designers from Virtua Fighter 5.

Itagaki was overall pretty tight-lipped about the new team and its mystery project, but did confirm that it wouldn't be a fighting game, as Itagaki is sure he's hit the ceiling there with Dead or Alive 4. He wouldn't comment on whether it would be an Xbox 360 exclusive, or heading to other consoles such as the PS3, but his past affiliations with Microsoft might suggest a likely path for his future games.

The latest issue of Famitsu has a treat for PS3 owners. Metal Gear! A brand new RPG, courtesy of Koei. Trinity: Zill O'll Zero is an awkwardly titled continuation of the Zill O'll series, which has appeared on PS2 and PSP. According to SCRAWL, the game is currently 30% complete, with a winter release scheduled. The content is supposedly darker than previous entries in the series -- however, considering the import-only nature of the original game, we don't really have a frame of reference.

For now, Trinity is strictly a Japan-only affair, and it may remain that way. Don't expect a localization any time soon, folks.

[Thanks, Peter!]

No, we can't believe we just wrote that headline either. And according to scattered reports (and a variety of phone calls we made this afternoon), it's the unfortunate truth: Some Japanese developers and producers are canceling their trips to E3 2009 due to Swine Flu worries. Capcom's Keiji Inafune and his game, Dead Rising 2, will both be missing. (This isn't the first time Inafune is canceling a trip.) Develop is also reporting that Square Enix and Koei will be canceling some employees' flights, with the Kingdom Hearts team and "an unspecified number of [Koei's] Japanese employees" taking the hit.

We asked Tecmo if there would be a change in its lineup at E3, to which a company rep assured, "No. Our content is still scheduled to be there and everything on the show floor, if not by the staff that's scheduled to fly in from Japan, it'll be demonstrated by our own staff from the US office." Tecmo also said producers for its upcoming lineup are still scheduled to appear alongside their titles. "As of today, we've been told our producers will still be in attendance." Konami declined comment as of press time and the ESA (E3's governing body and financial supporter) has yet to respond to our inquiries. As it stands, it looks like we'll be waiting 'til PAX 2009 or even the Tokyo Game Show to get our hands on Dead Rising 2.

Even in this crazy Kotec world it's refreshing to know the sun still rises in the east, Wheaties is still the breakfast of champions and Koei and the Dynasty Warriors are still best buds. Some things, you see, never change.

The latest in Koei's venerable action strategy franchise, Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires, will arrive on June 23 for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, promising character editing and a return to series' button mashing heroics set in China's good old days. Equally ancient is the game's multiplayer mode, with just two players supported offline and apparently no online mode at all. Still, with its boots stuck in history, it sort of completes the symmetry to have the whole experience cemented in the distant past.

Somehow, Koei has beaten Sony Online Entertainment at bringing a MMO to the PS3. Uncharted Waters is launching in Japan, bringing seafaring adventure to the masses. While that's little reason for us to celebrate, Siliconera may have discovered a few clues at a potential US release.

According to the site, Koei has recently registered a trademark for Uncharted Waters Online. Spencer speculates that the registration of an English trademark may be part of Koei Tecmo's plan to expand its global reach. If Koei decides to bring Uncharted Waters to the States, they better not take too long -- we think they'll want to beat FreeRealms, The Agency and DC Universe Online in order to best capture the PS3 audience's attention.

[Thanks, Zack!]

The Entertainment Software Association announced today that Koei, PlayLogic and ... Crave Entertainment are "the three newest members" of the trade organization. Okay, Koei and PlayLogic are new, but Crave would fall under the Gamestop definition of "new."

Crave left the ESA last year, but it appears that even the trade organization didn't notice in the midst of losing Activision/Vivendi, LucasArts and id. Oh well, Crave. Allow us to welcome you back to the ESA.

Game Watch reports that a party was recently held at Tokyo's Imperial Hotel celebrating the merger between Tecmo and Koei. During the festivities -- which included Koei co-founder Keiko Erikawa singing "The Girl from Ipanema" -- an executive decided to try out a new moniker for the company: Kotec. Not a bad amalgamation -- though our own staff was really rooting for Moei -- but there's something ... off about it. Something we can't quite place. Oh, wait, now we remember.

Maybe the company should just follow Namco Bandai's example and stick with Koei Tecmo.

[Via Kotaku]

Hey, remember Koei's PS3-exclusive action title, Ni-OH? You don't? Well, maybe that's because it all but vanished after making a brief, non-playable appearance at TGS in 2006, never to be heard from again -- that is, until the latest issue of Famitsu confirmed that Koei is, in fact, still working on the title. Admittedly, we'd probably be more excited about this development if we'd have heard anything about the game over the past three years. You don't call, you don't write, and now you expect us to let you just walk right back into our lives? It's not that easy, pal.