Shengshi Tianxia: The Path to Empress I & II Bring Tang Dynasty Politics to Life
The games offer a detailed, choice-driven simulation of Tang Dynasty court politics, with the sequel adding complex route branching that rewards replaying to find correct paths.
Reporting from 1 sources: Automaton.
Automaton published play impressions of the live-action interactive drama games Shengshi Tianxia: The Path to Empress I and II, set in China's Tang Dynasty around 640 AD. The games follow Wu Yuanzhao, modeled after Wu Zetian, through harem power struggles and succession disputes. They are available on PC, iOS, and Android, with a Nintendo Switch release planned. The sequel introduces branching historical and if routes with choices that affect later story branches.
The two live-action interactive drama games, set during the reign of Emperor Taizong Li Shimin, cast the player as Wu Yuanzhao, a woman modeled after the only female emperor in Chinese history. The first game focuses on survival within the harem, where the protagonist faces framing by childhood friends and cruelty from a consort while the emperor's succession dispute adds layers of conspiracy. The second game, after the emperor's death, sends the harem women to a nunnery before a return to power struggles. Its key innovation is a prologue route split between a historical path and an if path, with choices like which item to offer as a bribe determining later branches and leading to game overs that require replaying earlier selections.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.