How to Apply to Koei Tecmo Holdings

13 min read Last updated April 20, 2026 11 open positions
Blake Crosley
Blake Crosley Researched using publicly available information, hiring data, and ATS analysis.

Key Takeaways

  • Koei Tecmo Holdings (TYO:3635) is a Yokohama-headquartered Japanese game publisher built from the 2009 merger of Koei and Tecmo, with roughly 2,684 employees and ¥84.5 billion in fiscal 2023 revenue.
  • You are not really applying to 'Koei Tecmo' — you are applying to one of its brand studios: Omega Force (Dynasty Warriors / Musou), Team Ninja (Nioh, Wo Long, Rise of the Ronin), Gust (Atelier), Ruby Party (otome), or the new internal AAA Games Studio. Match your portfolio to the brand.
  • The application portal is the snar.jp third-party Japanese ATS at koeitecmo.snar.jp, behind a Japanese-language entry-sheet flow; the marketing site at koeitecmo.co.jp/recruit/ is a separately hosted static portal that simply links you into the snar account.
  • Japanese language at JLPT N2 minimum is the practical floor for development roles, and N1 is preferred for any role involving significant cross-team communication.
  • Portfolios are mandatory for CG and sound roles, and effectively mandatory for programmers (GitHub or shipped credits) and planners (design docs or playable prototypes).
  • Interview rounds are conducted in Japanese by default, lean heavily on craft-specific portfolio interrogation, and weigh long-term tenure orientation alongside skill.
  • Recent product context to know in interview: Rise of the Ronin (Team Ninja, 2024 PS5 launch exclusive), Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty DLC continuation, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land (Gust, March 2025), and the new AAA Games Studio's Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (November 2025).

About Koei Tecmo Holdings

Koei Tecmo Holdings (コーエーテクモホールディングス, Tokyo Stock Exchange ticker 3635) is the Yokohama-headquartered Japanese game publisher behind Dynasty Warriors, Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden, Nioh, Atelier, and Rise of the Ronin. The holding company was formed on April 1, 2009 through the merger of two long-running gaming houses — Koei (founded 1978 by husband-and-wife team Yoichi and Keiko Erikawa, originally a strategy and historical-simulation specialist) and Tecmo (founded 1967, originally an arcade and console action specialist). The combined group reported approximately ¥84.5 billion in revenue and ¥33.7 billion in net income for fiscal 2023, employs roughly 2,684 people across its global operations, and operates from a landmark glass tower in the Minatomirai 21 waterfront district of Yokohama, a short train ride south of Tokyo. As of April 2025 the leadership has transitioned: co-founder Yoichi Erikawa moved to Chairman, co-founder Keiko Erikawa became Chairman Emeritus, and Hisashi Koinuma — a longtime Omega Force producer who shepherded the Dynasty Warriors franchise through its global expansion — took the President and CEO seat. That generational handoff matters for candidates because Koinuma is a development-side leader, and the public roadmap leans heavily on game development talent rather than corporate growth-by-acquisition. Koei Tecmo is unusual among Japanese publishers in that it is essentially a federation of strong internal brands rather than a single homogeneous studio. Omega Force is the Musou (Warriors) team responsible for Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, and licensed crossovers like Hyrule Warriors and One Piece: Pirate Warriors; the new internal AAA Games Studio shipped Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment in November 2025. Team Ninja, headed by veterans of the Itagaki-era action lineage, builds Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden, Nioh, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, and the 2024 PlayStation 5 console exclusive Rise of the Ronin. Gust — a Nagano-based studio acquired in 2011 — develops the long-running Atelier alchemy-RPG series, with Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land released in March 2025. Ruby Party builds otome (women-targeted romance) games such as the Angelique and Harukanaru Toki no Naka de series. Beyond games, the group also runs a real-estate subsidiary, an amusement (pachinko/pachislot) line, and Erikawa-led venture investments — but those side businesses recruit through separate channels and are not the focus of this guide. For an applicant, the practical implication is that 'getting hired at Koei Tecmo' really means being hired into a specific brand under the holding company. Each brand has a distinct visual language, technology stack, and development culture: Omega Force optimizes for staging hundreds of on-screen enemies in a custom Musou engine, Team Ninja optimizes for frame-perfect combat readability and difficulty tuning, Gust optimizes for warm 2D-aesthetic 3D character art and JRPG systems design, and Ruby Party optimizes for narrative branching, voice-acting workflows, and a deep understanding of the otome reader. Position your portfolio for the brand you want, not for 'Koei Tecmo' as a single company.

Application Process

  1. 1
    Identify your track

    Identify your track. Koei Tecmo runs four parallel hiring funnels and you must enter through the right one: 新卒採用 (shinsotsu, new graduate, with annual cohorts entering the April after graduation), 経験者採用 (keikensha, mid-career experienced hire, year-round), アルバイト採用 (part-time / contract), and 障がい者採用 (a dedicated track for candidates with disabilities). All four are linked from the careers portal at koeitecmo.co.jp/recruit/.

  2. 2
    Read the role list before you apply

    Read the role list before you apply. The mid-career page lists roles grouped by discipline — programming (game programmer, server programmer for the Shibusawa Koh brand, web application programmer, cloud engineer, FTB technical artist, internal IT/network engineer, pachinko/pachislot programmer), CG (cutscene designer, 3D motion designer, 3D character modeler, 3D environment modeler, character/concept artist, UI/UX designer, effects designer, lighting artist, technical artist), planning (social game planner, pachinko/pachislot planner, event planner), and sound (sound creator). Apply to the specific posting; generic 'I want to make games' applications are filtered out.

  3. 3
    Create a snar

    Create a snar.jp account. Both the new-graduate and mid-career flows route to koeitecmo.snar.jp, the third-party Japanese applicant tracking system Koei Tecmo uses (snar is operated by i-plug Inc. and is widely used by Japanese employers). You will register a login, complete an entry sheet (エントリーシート), and upload your resume (履歴書 / rirekisho) and work history (職務経歴書 / shokumu keirekisho) in Japanese.

  4. 4
    Prepare the bilingual document set

    Prepare the bilingual document set. Use the standard JIS-format rirekisho with a passport-style photo top-right, plus a separate shokumu keirekisho detailing each prior role with dates, headcount of teams, technologies used, and shipped titles. If you are a foreign applicant whose Japanese is intermediate, include an English-language resume as a supplementary attachment but do not submit it as the primary document — the screening team reads Japanese first.

  5. 5
    Submit a portfolio matched to your discipline

    Submit a portfolio matched to your discipline. The careers site explicitly states that CG designer applicants must submit a portfolio (PDF, or physical CD-R / DVD by post for some legacy postings), and sound creator applicants must submit a CD-R of original work. For programmers, submit a GitHub link, a personal site, or a code archive that demonstrates real-time graphics, gameplay systems, or engine work. Planners should submit a written design document or a playable prototype.

  6. 6
    Pass the document screen

    Pass the document screen. A talent acquisition reviewer (often a hiring manager from the brand you applied to) reads the entry sheet, resume, and portfolio. For new-graduate hires this stage typically includes a SPI-style aptitude test (logic, language, basic math) administered through the snar.jp portal or an external testing center; for mid-career hires the document screen is usually direct.

  7. 7
    Take the technical task

    Take the technical task. Programmer candidates receive a take-home or on-site coding test focused on C++ (the dominant in-house language), real-time math, or — for tools and pipeline roles — Python or C#. Designers receive a small art test under a deadline (e.g., model a prop, animate a short loop, or paint a concept variation). Planners receive a design exercise (write a short spec, balance a sample system, or critique an existing game).

  8. 8
    Interview round one

    Interview round one. The first interview is usually conducted in Japanese by a hiring manager and a senior developer from the relevant brand, either at the Yokohama Minatomirai HQ or remotely via a video link. Expect 60-90 minutes covering motivation (志望動機), portfolio walkthrough, and discipline-specific deep-dive questions.

  9. 9
    Interview round two and beyond

    Interview round two and beyond. Mid-career flows typically run two to three interview rounds, new-graduate flows often run three to four. Later rounds bring in studio leadership (brand director, studio head), and final rounds may include an HR/cultural fit conversation and, for some roles, a meeting with a board-level executive. New-graduate offers cluster around April-to-October of the year before joining; mid-career offers can land within four to eight weeks of first contact.

  10. 10
    Receive the naitei and onboard

    Receive the naitei and onboard. A successful candidate receives a 内定 (naitei, informal job offer) which is then formalized in writing. New graduates start in a unified April cohort with group orientation; mid-career hires negotiate a start date and typically join within one to three months. All hires are based at the Yokohama HQ unless the role is explicitly tagged for the Gust studio in Nagano or another location.

Resume Tips for Koei Tecmo Holdings

recommended

Write the rirekisho in Japanese, full stop

Write the rirekisho in Japanese, full stop. Even if the posting is open to foreign nationals, the screening reviewer reads Japanese first. Use the JIS Z 8303 standard rirekisho template, attach a 4cm x 3cm formal photo, and keep handwritten versions only if the posting explicitly requests them — most Koei Tecmo postings now accept PDF.

recommended

Match the shokumu keirekisho to the brand

Match the shokumu keirekisho to the brand. If you are applying to Team Ninja, foreground action-game combat work, frame-data tuning, and any console (PS5, Xbox Series, Switch 2) shipping experience. If you are applying to Omega Force, foreground large-scale crowd rendering, AI navigation, or Musou-style mission design. If you are applying to Gust, foreground 2D-influenced 3D character art, JRPG systems balancing, or alchemy/crafting system design. The matching is the single highest-leverage move.

recommended

Name the shipped titles you contributed to with credit-roll-accurate role names

Name the shipped titles you contributed to with credit-roll-accurate role names. Japanese hiring teams cross-check credit lists. If you were 'Programmer II - Combat' on a published title, write that exact title; do not inflate it to 'Lead Combat Designer.' Inflation that gets caught in interview is fatal.

recommended

Quantify the production scale, not just the years

Quantify the production scale, not just the years. State the team headcount, the engine (Unreal 5, Unity, proprietary), the platform list, the launch date, and the user-facing scale (units shipped, MAU, review aggregate score). Koei Tecmo producers think in terms of project scope and risk profile.

recommended

Show the portfolio link inline at the top

Show the portfolio link inline at the top. Put the URL of your portfolio, GitHub, ArtStation, or SoundCloud immediately beneath your name and contact details on the rirekisho — reviewers should not have to hunt through three documents to find it.

recommended

Demonstrate Japanese-language work product

Demonstrate Japanese-language work product. Even for a programmer or technical artist, including one or two technical writeups, design documents, or comments in Japanese signals that you can operate inside an all-Japanese codebase and review process. JLPT N2 is the practical floor for most non-research roles; N1 is preferred for any role with significant cross-team communication.

recommended

Reference Koei Tecmo titles you have actually played and finished, not just hear

Reference Koei Tecmo titles you have actually played and finished, not just heard of. In interview, you will be asked which Koei Tecmo games you love and why. Bake one or two specific systems-level observations ('the Burst Counter system in Wo Long inverted the parry-versus-block tradeoff from Nioh') into your motivation statement. Surface-level fan praise is transparent.

recommended

For new graduates, lead with internships, university-club shipped projects, game

For new graduates, lead with internships, university-club shipped projects, game-jam wins, and individual-developer releases. Koei Tecmo respects evidence of finishing things. A single polished itch.io release outweighs three half-built prototypes.

recommended

Avoid Western-resume conventions that backfire in Japan

Avoid Western-resume conventions that backfire in Japan. Do not write a 'Summary' or 'Objective' paragraph at the top, do not use bullet-point hyperbole ('rockstar', 'ninja'), do not attach a recommendation letter unsolicited, and do not pad with non-relevant hobbies. A Japanese reviewer reads density as discipline.

recommended

Run a final naming check

Run a final naming check. Koei Tecmo brand names have specific spellings and capitalizations: Omega Force (オメガフォース), Team Ninja (Team NINJA — note the all-caps NINJA in official usage), Gust (ガスト, but always written 'Gust' in English), Ruby Party (ルビーパーティー), Shibusawa Koh (シブサワ・コウ — the historical-simulation brand named after the studio's founder pseudonym). Misnaming the brand on your application is a tell.

ATS System: snar (i-plug) — koeitecmo.snar.jp

Koei Tecmo runs its applicant tracking through snar (sometimes stylized 'snar.jp'), a Japanese-market hiring management platform operated by i-plug Inc. and hosted on Microsoft Azure. The candidate-facing login lives at https://koeitecmo.snar.jp/login.aspx; the public marketing portal at https://www.koeitecmo.co.jp/recruit/ is a separately hosted static site (AWS S3 / CloudFront) that simply links into the snar account flow. snar is an ASP.NET application — you will see .aspx URLs and ASP.NET_SessionId cookies — and it is fully Japanese-language by default. There is no Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, Eightfold, or LinkedIn Easy Apply pathway: every formal application goes through the snar account you create.

  • Register your snar account from a desktop browser, not a phone. The entry-sheet forms are long, contain free-text Japanese fields, and the ASP.NET session can time out on flaky mobile connections, costing you unsaved input.
  • Use a Japanese IME and full-width Japanese characters where the form expects them (name kana, address). Half-width Latin in a kana field is a common rejection trigger in snar-style systems.
  • Save your entry-sheet long-answer responses in a local document first, then paste them into snar. The system does not auto-save and a session timeout will discard your text.
  • Upload PDF resumes and portfolios under the file-size limit shown on each upload widget (usually 5 MB or 10 MB per file). Compress portfolio PDFs aggressively — snar will reject oversized uploads silently.
  • Disable browser translation (Chrome 'Translate to English') while you fill out the form. Auto-translation can corrupt the form fields and submit garbled data.
  • Watch the email address you register. snar sends interview scheduling, document requests, and the offer letter to that address; Gmail's Promotions tab and corporate spam filters are common reasons candidates miss the next-stage email. Whitelist the @snar.jp and @koeitecmo.co.jp domains.
  • Do not create a second snar account if you already applied. Duplicate applications are flagged and the older record (with your full history) gets deprioritized.

Interview Culture

Koei Tecmo interviews follow Japanese corporate-formal conventions filtered through a creative-studio sensibility.

You will dress in business attire (dark suit, white shirt, conservative tie for new-grad rounds; smart business casual is acceptable for mid-career rounds at the development-team's discretion). Bow on entry, present and receive business cards (meishi) with two hands if asked, and address senior interviewers with their family name plus -san. Interviews are conducted in Japanese by default, even for foreign candidates whose written application included an English supplement; if your Japanese is conversational rather than fluent, say so explicitly upfront and ask whether the interviewer is comfortable switching for technical sections. The content of the interview, however, is heavily craft-driven. Expect deep, specific portfolio interrogation — a Team Ninja interviewer will ask why you tuned a particular hitstun window the way you did, an Omega Force programmer will ask how your AI flocking implementation degrades when 200 agents are on screen, a Gust art lead will ask which reference paintings informed a specific character silhouette. Bring printed copies of your portfolio in case the meeting room screen-share fails. Bring a notebook. Take notes when interviewers speak — Japanese interviewers read note-taking as respect. Motivation (志望動機) is taken extremely seriously. 'I want to work on games' is not an answer; 'I want to work on the next Atelier title because I believe the synthesis-loop tension between time pressure and recipe optimization is the most interesting under-explored RPG verb of the decade' is an answer. Be ready to name the brand, the franchise, and the specific systems or aesthetics that draw you in. Be ready to be asked which Koei Tecmo games disappointed you and why — the studios respect honest critique from people who have clearly played the work. Later rounds shift toward fit and longevity. Japanese game studios still hire with an implicit assumption of multi-year tenure, and the conversation will turn to where you want to be in five and ten years, what kinds of projects you want to ship, and how you handle the long crunch cycles that accompany AAA console releases. Answer honestly. The studio is not looking for someone who will leave after one project; promising the moon to land the offer and then job-hopping is a recognized failure mode and damages your reputation in the Tokyo / Yokohama games industry. Finally, be ready for the silence. Japanese interviewers often pause for several seconds after a question before you answer, and again after your answer before they respond. Do not rush to fill the silence — it is thinking time, not awkwardness. Respect the rhythm and you will read as composed.

What Koei Tecmo Holdings Looks For

  • Portfolio depth in your specific discipline. Generalists do not get hired; a strong CG designer with shipped 3D character work, or a strong gameplay programmer with shipped action-combat code, will outcompete a 'full-stack game developer' every time.
  • Demonstrated love of one or more of the studio's franchises. Koei Tecmo brands have decades of canon, and hires who can speak fluently about that canon (the difference between Empires and standard Dynasty Warriors entries, the systemic evolution from Nioh to Wo Long to Rise of the Ronin, the alchemy-loop changes between Atelier Ryza and Atelier Yumia) signal that they will stay engaged through long development cycles.
  • Japanese language at JLPT N2 minimum (N1 strongly preferred). The codebase, design documents, version-control commit messages, internal wikis, and review meetings are all Japanese-first. Strong Japanese is not a 'nice to have' for Yokohama-based development roles; it is the price of admission.
  • Production maturity — the ability to ship inside a structured pipeline. Studio leads ask about your handoff discipline (do you tag your assets correctly for the engine team, do you keep your branches clean, do you write specifications a localization team can actually translate). Indie auteurs sometimes struggle here.
  • Long-term orientation. Koei Tecmo invests heavily in training new-graduate hires through the first one to three years, and the implicit deal is that hires reciprocate with tenure. Candidates who frame the role as a stepping stone to a Western studio read poorly.
  • Cross-disciplinary literacy. Programmers who can read concept art and discuss it intelligently, designers who can write Python tools, and artists who understand frame-rate budgets all stand out. The studios run small enough teams that brittle silos cause friction.
  • Console-platform experience for Team Ninja and the AAA Games Studio. Recent shipped credits on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2 are a major plus, particularly for low-level engine, rendering, and platform-certification roles.
  • Discretion. Koei Tecmo brands sit on long-running franchises with substantial unannounced pipelines. Candidates who in early conversations leak that they are interviewing elsewhere, or who probe for unannounced project information, are filtered out.
  • For non-Japanese candidates, a credible plan to live and work in Yokohama or surrounding Kanto. The studio has historically supported visa sponsorship for senior creative and technical hires, but expects the candidate to be ready to relocate physically; remote-from-overseas is rare for development roles.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does Koei Tecmo Holdings use, and where do I actually apply?
Koei Tecmo runs hiring through snar (operated by i-plug Inc.), a Japanese applicant tracking platform. The candidate flow is at https://koeitecmo.snar.jp/login.aspx, reached via the public marketing portal at https://www.koeitecmo.co.jp/recruit/. There is no Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, or LinkedIn Easy Apply route — every formal application goes through a snar account you create. The system is ASP.NET-based, hosted on Microsoft Azure, and entirely Japanese-language.
Do I have to speak Japanese to work at Koei Tecmo?
For development roles based in Yokohama: effectively yes. JLPT N2 is the practical floor and N1 is strongly preferred. The codebase, design documents, version control history, internal wikis, and meetings are all Japanese-first. The hiring funnel itself — entry sheet, interview rounds, offer paperwork — is conducted in Japanese by default, and asking the studio to switch to English mid-process for a development role is a near-certain rejection signal. The narrow exceptions are senior research, certain technical-art lead positions, and overseas business-development roles, where English-strong, Japanese-conversational candidates have been hired.
Are the four studio brands really separate, or is that just marketing?
They are functionally separate development organizations under one holding company, with distinct producers, distinct engines and tooling lineages, distinct office floors in the Yokohama HQ (Gust is even a separate physical studio in Nagano), and distinct hiring preferences. Omega Force optimizes for Musou-style large-scale combat; Team Ninja optimizes for high-difficulty action with frame-perfect inputs; Gust optimizes for warm 2D-influenced 3D and JRPG systems; Ruby Party optimizes for narrative branching for the otome audience. You should research and apply to a specific brand.
Does Koei Tecmo sponsor work visas for foreign hires?
Yes, historically the company has sponsored Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services visas (技術・人文知識・国際業務) for senior technical and creative hires, and supported relocation. But sponsorship is reserved for hires the studio considers strategically important — usually mid-to-senior with a strong shipping record. New-graduate visa sponsorship is rarer and is generally limited to graduates of Japanese universities who can interview in Japanese. Plan to be physically based in Yokohama; remote-from-overseas is not the norm for game development roles.
Which roles is Koei Tecmo hiring for right now?
As listed on the mid-career portal: game programmers, server programmers (Shibusawa Koh historical-simulation brand), web application programmers, cloud engineers, internal IT and network engineers, technical artists (FTB and general), pachinko/pachislot programmers and planners, cutscene designers, 3D motion/character/environment modelers, character and concept artists, UI/UX designers, effects designers, lighting artists, social game planners, event planners, and sound creators. The list rotates — check https://www.koeitecmo.co.jp/recruit/career/ for the live posting before applying.
What does a portfolio submission look like in practice?
For CG designers: a PDF portfolio (or, for some legacy postings, a CD-R or DVD shipped by post) with character and environment work, animation reels, technical breakdowns, and clear credit attribution for any shipped or team work. For sound creators: a CD-R of original compositions and sound design, ideally with at least one piece in a game-music idiom. For programmers: a GitHub link, a personal site, or a packaged code archive demonstrating real-time graphics, gameplay systems, or engine work, plus shipped credits. For planners: written design documents, system specifications, or a playable prototype. Whatever the form, link it from the top of your rirekisho so the reviewer cannot miss it.
How long does the hiring process take, and when should I apply?
Mid-career applications typically run four to eight weeks from initial submission to offer, with two to three interview rounds. New-graduate hiring follows the Japanese annual cycle: applications open in spring of the year before joining, formal interviews cluster in summer and autumn, naitei (informal offers) land between October and the following spring, and the cohort starts together on April 1. If you are graduating in March 2027, you are applying in spring/summer 2026.
What recent Koei Tecmo titles should I have played before interviewing?
At minimum: Rise of the Ronin (Team Ninja, 2024 PS5 launch exclusive, Bakumatsu-era open-world action), the most recent Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty content drop, Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land (Gust, March 2025), and the AAA Games Studio's Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment (November 2025). Beyond those, play at least one Dynasty Warriors entry and one Atelier entry from the past few years so you can speak to the franchise tradition, not just the latest release. The Wizardry Variants Daphne collaboration and any current Nobunaga's Ambition or Romance of the Three Kingdoms title under the Shibusawa Koh brand are also worth knowing if you are applying to those teams.
Is there a difference between applying as a new graduate and applying as a mid-career hire?
Yes, structurally. New-graduate (新卒) hires enter through a unified spring application cycle, take a SPI-style aptitude test, go through three to four interview rounds including an HR fit conversation, and start in a single April cohort with structured training. Mid-career (経験者) hires apply year-round to specific open roles, skip the SPI in most cases, go through two to three more discipline-focused interview rounds, and negotiate individual start dates. New graduates are evaluated heavily on potential and on shipped student or hobby projects; mid-career hires are evaluated heavily on shipped commercial credits and references.
Where is the office, and is hybrid or remote work available?
The Koei Tecmo Holdings headquarters is at 1-18-12 Minatomirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama, in the Minatomirai 21 waterfront district (a short walk from Minatomirai Station on the Minatomirai Line). Gust is based in Nagano. Some support and back-office roles offer hybrid arrangements, but development roles — particularly those tied to console certification, motion capture, audio recording, and physical art review — remain heavily on-site. Plan on a daily commute into Yokohama for any development position.

Open Positions

Koei Tecmo Holdings currently has 11 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 11 open positions at Koei Tecmo Holdings

Related Resources

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Sources

  1. Koei Tecmo Holdings — Official recruitment portal (採用情報) —
  2. Koei Tecmo mid-career hiring page (経験者採用) —
  3. Koei Tecmo applicant portal — snar.jp login (i-plug ATS) —
  4. Koei Tecmo Holdings — Corporate site —
  5. Koei Tecmo — Wikipedia (corporate history, leadership, financials, brands) —
  6. Tokyo Stock Exchange — Koei Tecmo Holdings (3635) listing —