When Showa American Story was first announced in 2022, its reveal trailer depicting a parallel 1991 in which the United States had become a colony of Japan went viral, with nearly half a million views on IGN’s YouTube channel alone. It has been a year since the last update via an interview with IGN Japan. Chinese developer Nekcom has since pushed back the game’s release, switched development from Unreal Engine 4 to 5, and devoted additional time and resources in order to meet gamers’ intense expectations.
Now, in a fresh interview with Creative Director XY.Luo, IGN can exclusively reveal a brand new boss character and several new screenshots that show how work is progressing on this fascinating new game.
Gokou is the impressive new boss that players will face at some point in their adventure. This American politician has blonde hair and a muscular chest covered in beastly hair, and harbours a treacherous past.
“Gokou is a character who is a mix of an American cowboy and a Japanese samurai,” explains Luo. “Although he is American, he is deeply knowledgeable about Japanese culture, and when you fight him, you will notice he pulls from both Eastern and Western cultures in his combat style.”
Luo continues, “While I cannot go into detail yet about the techniques Gokou uses in battle, he is closely connected with the background story of the game. He’s not the final boss or the overarching villain, but in our alternate history, Gokou is the Governor of Texas, and it was him who sold the land of Texas to Japan.”
While Gokou’s character model appears almost photorealistic, and development has included some photogrammetry, Luo explains that Gokou and most of the other main characters were initially hand-drawn, before being converted to 3D and added to the game. “Gokou’s design was inspired by a certain famous 1980s American rock star,” hints Luo. “Whether each character is created by hand or based on a 3D facial model, we take care to make sure they express realism. Since our development team is small – just 26 members – we are outsourcing some of the asset creation.”
Indeed, you can see from our exclusive set of new screenshots that the visual quality of the game has markedly improved since it was first revealed. Luo says that development is proceeding “as planned”, with his team aiming to achieve the quality they had first envisioned.
“With over two years of hard work by our incredible development team since the first trailer was revealed, and upgrading the game engine from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5, the game looks much more solid, including the graphics,” says Luo, “However, compared to a large development team, I must say Showa American Story is not a AAA game, but I believe that it will exceed players’ expectations when it comes out.”
Showa American Story follows protagonist Chouko, a teenage action stuntwoman mysteriously revived from the dead, as she fights her way through hordes of monsters and zombies in a postapocalyptic 1980s United States that has been colonized by Japan. Heavily influenced by B-movies and American and Japanese pop-culture, the game is currently in development for PlayStation 5 and PC. The release date is still tbc.
Daniel Robson is Chief Editor of IGN Japan, and Ryuichi Kataoka is a freelance writer for IGN Japan
