Shengshi Tianxia Producer on 100 Bad Endings and 1,500 Minutes of Live-Action Drama
The interviews reveal that the series' high death rate is a deliberate design philosophy, not a punishment, and that Japanese players' embrace of the 'death game' framing has validated the studio's approach to choice-driven storytelling.
Key Facts
- Shengshi Tianxia: The Road to Empress I and II took about three years from planning to release, with over 100 days of live-action filming.
- The series has a total runtime of about 1,500 minutes, with the second game alone featuring about 1,000 minutes of new footage across 32 episodes.
- The second game has over 100 branching routes, nearly double the volume of the first game.
- The games are available on PC via Steam, iOS, and Android, with a combined Switch version planned for 2026 by Sega.
- The series has sold over 5 million copies worldwide, according to Automaton.
Reporting from 2 sources: Automaton, Game Spark.
New One Studio producer Demi discussed the making of the live-action interactive drama series Shengshi Tianxia: The Road to Empress I and II in interviews published on July 31, 2026. The games, set in China's Tang Dynasty, follow Wu Yuanzhao, the future Empress Wu Zetian, as she enters Emperor Taizong's harem around 640 AD. The series took about three years from planning to release, with over 100 days of filming and a total runtime of roughly 1,500 minutes. The second game alone features about 1,000 minutes of new footage across 32 episodes and over 100 branching routes, nearly double the first game's volume. Demi said the bad endings were not a target metric but a necessity to give choices real weight, so players feel that decisions carry irreversible consequences. The team used a custom real-time editor and color-coded scripts to coordinate video and game scriptwriters. The games are available on PC via Steam, iOS, and Android, with a combined Switch version planned for 2026 by Sega.
The interviews, conducted by Automaton and Game Spark, offer a rare look into the production of a live-action FMV game at a scale usually reserved for television drama. Demi, the producer at New One Studio, said the team includes screenwriters, directors, and cinematographers from film and drama, alongside game designers and engineers who built a custom editor for the project. Director Zhizhu has a background in acclaimed Chinese period dramas, which informed the series' attention to historical detail, including the chashou li gesture of respect and court deliberation procedures.
Demi emphasized that the goal was to make players feel they are living in the world rather than watching it. The team avoided narration-heavy explanations of ancient culture, instead letting characters naturally use etiquette and titles within scenes. The localization for Japanese players aimed to avoid feeling like a translation, adjusting imperial terms and honorifics to match the tone of Japanese period dramas. The bad endings, which number over 100, were written with a playful tone so that failure itself becomes part of the entertainment. Demi noted that Japanese players often treat deaths as collectibles, saying 'I died again!' in let's plays, which confirmed the team's intent that choices carry weight.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 2 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.