Perhaps an unlikely duo, Wargaming’s World of Warships is about to get a heaping dose of Anime Injection via High School Fleet, a popular naval-based anime that’s perfectly suited to crossing over with the action of Warships. We spoke to Wargaming’s Trevor Smith about the event, and what players can expect. For even more info be sure to check the news at the official site. The update lands on live servers this coming Monday.
MMORPG: What prompted the desire to cross over Warships with Anime? At my own first glance, it seems like an unlikely duo.
TS: The idea was driven by the Wargaming Asia office. Much like the collaboration with Girls und Panzer for World of Tanks, they saw potential in working with the Warship themed Anime as a way to garner interest in our game from a new set of people.
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MMORPG: I'm not familiar with High School Fleet. Can you explain the show a bit?
TS: High School Fleet’s story is based around a girl (Akeno Misaki) who wants to join the Blue Mermaids, a female maritime peacekeeping force. Akeno enrolls in Yokosuka Girls Marine High School to make this happen. She is assigned to destroyer Harekaze and many a naval themed adventure ensues.
MMORPG: What all will be coming into World of Warships with the partnership?
TS: Our HSF partnership introduces two skinned versions of ships to World of Warships. Harekaze, a Kagero-class destroyer, and Graf Spee, a Deutschland-class cruiser. We also have new commander voices from two of the show’s voice actors as well as in game commander portraits.
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MMORPG: Will the ships "look" like anime, or will they be more realistic in tune with the other WoWS ships?
TS: The ships will be skinned as the ships from the show, yes, but players don’t have to see them that way. We understand that many people prefer to keep the game looking as real as possible, so there is an option to not see skinned ships in game. If you choose to go that route, they will just appear as the normal ship models in game.
MMORPG: Is Warships a popular title in Japan? This sort of partnership seems specifically targeted at that region for the game.
TS: World of Warships is growing in Japan, but Anime extends far past just the Japanese audience.
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MMORPG: Did the original cast re-record voice overs or are you using some from the show?
TS: We actually had the voice actress of the characters record voice lines for the game. The same in game voice lines you would hear normally are now done by the actual characters.
MMORPG: This sort of event seems like an ideal chance to try your hand at a story/scripted PVE campaign in the vein of the show. Can we expect something like that down the line?
TS: We already have some scripted PvE content in game now. I wouldn’t rule out any possibilities of future PvE content.
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MMORPG: This kind of crossover seems out of character for your games. But at the same time, it's insanely fun. Are you keen on doing more? Perhaps more than anime crossovers, in the future?
TS: This is the second Anime crossover we have done for World of Warships, the first being Arpeggio of Blue Steel. That was pretty well received so here we are now with High School Fleet. Anything is possible with the World of Warships team (I’m looking at you Steven Seagal).
