Toei Games: Anime giant enters gaming, but not with Dragon Ball or One Piece

Alongside Toho and Sunrise, Toei Company is one of the biggest names in the anime and entertainment industry. The Japanese animation giant has announced that it now wants to expand into another major entertainment market: gaming. As part of this move, the group unveiled a new brand called Toei Games on April 21, 2026, which will initially focus mainly on publishing PC games via Steam. An expansion to consoles such as the Nintendo Switch 2 (currently $449 on Amazon) is planned for later. The official Toei Games website is already online.

For fans, the first big question is likely to be which franchise the group will use to establish itself in gaming. With Dragon Ball, One Piece, Sailor Moon, Digimon and Kamen Rider, there are many major brands to choose from. That makes the answer all the more surprising: Toei Games apparently does not want to start with a well-known anime franchise, but instead plans to develop entirely new IPs.

Three projects have already been named:

• KILLA - a 3D mystery adventure in which protagonist Valhalla investigates the murder of her mentor on an unknown island.
• Hino - a 2D dark fantasy game with a distinctive ballpoint-pen look.
• Debug Nephemee - a 2D top-down adventure in which the world is plagued by so-called bugs.

The move fits the current trend in Japan. Other media companies such as Sanrio, Shueisha, Toho and Parco are also expanding their gaming activities. Community reactions have so far been cautiously curious. On Reddit, some users welcome more competition in the anime games market and hope for games based on Kamen Rider, Super Sentai or Precure in the long term. At the same time, there is also skepticism: many doubt that Toei can deliver high-quality games right away. Others point out that brands such as Dragon Ball or One Piece would not automatically end up at Toei Games for licensing reasons. Although Toei produces the anime adaptations, the underlying manga rights are held by the creators.