In 2003, Taiwan-based video game developer Softstar released two follow-ups to its 1995 hit The Legend of Sword and Fairy. Although the two sequels were released in a span of months, they bore little resemblance to each other. The two-dimensional Legend of Sword and Fairy II, produced by Softstar’s Taiwan office, stayed true to the first installment’s wuxia martial arts theme and aesthetic, while the three-dimensional Legend of Sword and Fairy III, produced by Softstar’s Shanghai subsidiary, had a dramatically different look based on xianxia, or “chivalric fantasy.”
Even at the time, Softstar’s decision to release drastically different sequels to an eight-year-old game in such quick succession was perplexing, but the market’s verdict was clear: Whereas the wuxia-themed second installment was met with a tepid…
