“The Three Kingdoms”, a Chinese epic that continues to inspire video games

Why does a novel written over 600 years ago inspire video game creators today? Wo Long: Fallen Dynastyreleased March 3 on PC, PlayStation (4 and 5) and Xbox (One and Series) is a dark retelling of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, a classic of Chinese literature. The Japanese studio Team Ninja applies to this epic the aesthetics of dark fantasy – a fantasy genre in which black magic instills a morbid atmosphere.

This adaptation does not happen alone. The narrative game Reigns: Three Kingdoms (2022) recently immersed us in the political intrigues of the time, while Total War: Three Kingdoms (2019) puts the spotlight on military strategy.

As for the series Dynasty Warriors, for a quarter of a century, it has become a standard-bearer for Three Kingdoms. Inaugurated in 1997, it accumulated more than 20 million sales in 2020, according to its publisher Koei Tecmo. Proof that ancient literature and video games can go hand in hand.

From literature to “musô”

Let’s briefly go back to the first inspiration: Luo Guanzhong romanticized historical facts that took place between the end of the II^e century and that of the III^e century. He drew from it a river fresco rich with a hundred characters. In the background, the reader witnesses the collapse of the Han dynasty, the fragmentation of its empire and the political and social chaos that ensued.

Before exploring on consoles or PC, The Three Kingdoms are a treasure of Chinese literature. The novel is as important as Shakespeare’s work for English speakers, details in World Wenqing Peng, associate professor in the translation department of Soochow University in Suzhou (Jiangsu). “The book had a profound impact on different aspects of Chinese culture, whether in political strategies, military battles, interpersonal relationships, religious beliefs, etc. », advance the one who published an academic paper on Chinese translation of Total War: Three Kingdoms.

Paradoxically, the country of origin of Three Kingdoms has nothing to do with these adaptations. This influence in the industry originated in Japan, where the book is translated from the XVIII^e century. “It’s a very popular story, confirm to World Masaaki Yamagiwa, producer of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. In my youth, there were a lot of mangas, novels and TV shows based on it. »

This Japanese craze in the XX^e century can be explained in particular by the success of the novel gokushi by Eiji Yoshikawa (not translated), serialized from 1939, recalls Pierre-William Fregonese, associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Kobe. It was then adapted into a manga by Mitsuteru Yokoyama between 1971 and 1987, then transposed into an anime, he adds.

What do you like about this novel? “The story and especially its characters are fascinating. Politicians, strategists and fencing masters clash in an exotic world where the balance of power is not fixed, hence the very marked taste of Japanese boys for this story.believes the French researcher.

After manga, come video games. The Koei studio seized it for the first time in 1985 with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, starting point of a series that now has fourteen main episodes. This universe became the hallmark of the powerful publisher (which became Koei Tecmo), from Dynasty Warriors (1997) – whose second episode alone initiates a new genre of action games (the “muso”in which it is necessary to face entire armies) –, which declines The Three Kingdoms over more than thirty episodes. The recent Wo Long: Fallen Dynastywhich features uncompromising combat inspired by martial arts, is the company’s latest attempt to revisit this epic.

The art of War

The teams of Creative Assembly, British specialists in strategy games, did not take offense at the Western ignorance of this story when they embarked, on behalf of the Japanese publisher Sega, in the development of their own adaptation of the Three Kingdoms.

“A timeless period, larger-than-life characters, political intrigue and battles on an unparalleled scale… It’s in tune with our DNA”considers Janos Gaspar, co-director of the game Total War: Three Kingdoms (2019) which offers to replay legendary battles.

For this Hong Kong cinema enthusiast, too bad if laymen are not familiar with great figures such as Cao Cao, Liu Bei or Zhuge Liang, the interactive experience must take precedence: “There is a “sandbox” dimension in Total War. You can either immerse yourself in the story or transgress it by saying to yourself, “What if I had made such a covenant? ” “What alternative scenario is there? ””

The possibility for players to change (or not) the course of history does not exempt developers from following the source material as closely as possible. Careful documentation in order to best stick to the battles described in the book, as well as a translation provided by Chinese teams familiar with the work of Luo Guanzhong, made it possible to avoid missteps with the Chinese public. Its publication on this very closed market – but with the most players in the world – ensured an extraordinary reception for the title: a week after its release, more than a million copies have been sold.

Unstructured stories

The 7,000 pages of Luo Guanzhong’s novel guarantee an abundant source of inspiration for creating game mechanics, explains the World Yuyo Li, producer of the Chinese board game Killers of the Three Kingdoms, became a screenwriter Reigns: Three Kingdoms (2022). It was she who suggested to the British studio Nerial to decline the epic in Reignsa series in which we embody sovereigns who must decide on the policy of their kingdom.

It doesn’t matter if the game, distributed on mobile through Netflix, is not a priori intended to be broadcast in China… The idea of ​​adapting this novel appealed to the director of the series, François Alliot. The dense and irregular character of old works such as The Three Kingdomswhich he brings closer to The Iliad of Homer, is according to him more in tune with video game writing than are modern novels or films, the duration of which is circumscribed by the size of a book or a duration of diffusion in the room, reports-t- he :

“Here, there are a lot of characters and a lot of themes… It goes from daily life to armies – and then there’s a fantastic side too. It’s the kind of epic that may seem a little unstructured, but in fact it’s very suitable material for a game like ours: each player will have a different way of exploring this world. and to reconstruct history little by little. »

A big pad – preferably very dusty – can ultimately prove to be a video game developer’s best ally.