You may know Toei Company for a variety of different projects, from One Piece to Dragon Ball, but the Japanese entertainment giant has now set its sights on a new land to spread Toei magic over: Video Games. Yesterday, April 21st, Toei announced a new in-house publishing label known as Toei Games. This publishing label is positioning itself as a core pillar of the business alongside film, television, and live events.
Now this wasn’t just any randomly decided move but instead was made deliberately. 2026 marks Toei’s 75th anniversary, and by launching a whole new gaming division they’re planting a flag in what seems to be the next major chapter of its reach into media we enjoy and consume. The first titles launched by Toei will release on Steam, with console releases planned for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox later down the line.
Who is Toei?
If you’ve ever watched anime, you’ve almost certainly watched something Toei touched in one capacity or another. Toei is one of Japan’s four major film distributors and is the majority shareholder in Toei Animation, the studio responsible for some of the biggest franchises in the medium. A short list of what was impacted by Toei’s hands include but isn’t limited to:
- One Piece
- Dragon Ball
- Sailor Moon
- Digimon
- Yu-Gi-Oh
- Kamen Rider
- Super Sentai (Also known as Power Rangers)
- Battle Royale (film) (Distributed by Toei)
This list could go on for hours, but it’s what makes the announcement particularly interesting. With a catalog such as the one above, the obvious move would be to cash in with licensed games such as new Sailor Moon, One Piece, and Dragon Ball titles but that’s not what Toei Games is doing.
The Goal is Original Games
Toei has confirmed that the initial lineup of games will consist of entirely new IPs created by developers in Japan and abroad. That means while we have studios such as Bandai Namco working on new Dragon Ball Games, and while we’ve had One Piece games before, that’s not Toei’s goal with this studio. Sure, they could lean into existing IPs in the future but the goal is to build new IP from the ground up and, in Toei’s words, “set the world on fire” with it.
Toei’s CEO Fumio Yoshimura framed this expansion into gaming as a direct expression of the company’s long-term vision. “TOEI NEW WAVE 2033” is a strategy focused on bringing Toei’s storytelling to a global audience through channels that transcend language barriers. Yoshimura argued that games are uniquely suited for that goal.
What to Expect
It’s a genuinely surprising move to see a studio I knew behind some banger animations decide to step into the gaming world, but as someone who made this site to share my thoughts and news on gaming, I can’t be happier. Whether Toei Games can build something from scratch that ends up living up to the companies long lasting studio remains to be seen, but in two days on April 24st we will get our first glimpse into the future of Toei.
You can check out the official Toei Games website here, and for more gaming news click here to learn about Microsoft lowering the price of Game Pass.
