If you just picked up Road to Empress I and are staring at the opening scene wondering why you already died twice—welcome to the club. This is a game that punishes hesitation, rewards suspicion, and treats every choice as a potential death sentence. It is also one of the most gripping FMV interactive dramas you will ever play.
This beginner guide covers the fundamentals you need before you commit to your first serious run. No spoilers beyond what is necessary to keep you breathing through the early chapters.
Road to Empress I is a full-motion-video interactive drama developed by New One Studio, the same team behind the BAFTA-recognized The Invisible Guardian. You play as Wu Yuanzhao, a young woman who enters the imperial palace as a low-ranking Cairen in 637 AD and must navigate lethal court politics to survive—let alone thrive.
The game spans 16 chapters and boasts 110 endings. The vast majority of those are Bad Endings (BE), and the game is shockingly willing to kill you over what seems like a casual dialogue choice. Think of it as a palace intrigue simulator with a mortality rate that would make a roguelike blush. Every scene is performed by live actors on physical sets, filmed in 4K, which means there are no screenshots in this guide—portrait rights prevent us from using any captured footage. You will have to experience the visuals firsthand.
When a decision point appears, you are typically given two to four options. Some are clearly flavour text that only shift your Trait Sketch slightly. Others are instant death. The game does not flag which is which.
Here is the critical rule: most choices that seem generous or trusting lead to Bad Endings. The imperial court does not reward naivety. If someone offers you a gift, agreeing too eagerly can be fatal. If someone asks you to share quarters, accepting can end your run. You must approach every interaction as if the other person has an ulterior motive—because they almost always do.
Each ending screen gives you a brief explanation of what went wrong, plus a voice message from characters in the scene. These are genuinely useful: the voice notes often spell out exactly which decision doomed you. Listen to them.
The first four chapters are the steepest difficulty curve in the entire game. New players die more frequently here than anywhere else because the rules of the court are still opaque. Here are the critical survival points:
Chapter 1 — The Unfathomable Rear Palace. When Consort Wei of Preciousness asks who the dropped hairpin belongs to, never say it belongs to Liu Xi. That is an immediate BE. When asked to choose a room, do not share a room with Liu Xi—this is another instant BE that catches nearly every new player. Refuse Liu Xi, then choose to win over others rather than taking the bloody handprint room. The handprint room also kills you.
Chapter 2 — A Frightful Banquet. Do not eat the flatbread. Do not eat the prison gruel. Do not perform a terrible pipa performance at the banquet. If you choose the Radiance dress path, picking “A stunning song” creates a hidden trap later in the Prove Yourself section that forces a BE. Stick with “A simple dance” until you know the routes better. When asked to select a dress, you can toggle between options ten times to unlock the Wardrobe Indecision feat—worth doing for the achievement.
Chapters 3 and 4 — Crown Prince’s Palace Enigma. When Li Tai proposes loyalty, pledge it—suggesting he pick someone else is a BE. When challenged by a guard, identify the visitor as a physician sent by the Prince of Wei, not a tutor sent by His Majesty. If spotted by your Aunt, flee together—running alone is a BE. The QTE in the Chamberlain’s Threat scene must be passed; failing it ends the chapter immediately.
The general principle for Chapters 1–4: be paranoid, refuse invitations from people you do not fully trust, and always assume the palace is trying to kill you. It is.
Quick-Time Events appear throughout the game during moments of physical danger—fights, escapes, and confrontations. When a QTE fires, you must complete the on-screen input within the time window. Failing a QTE usually drops you straight into a Bad Ending.
However, failing a QTE is not a permanent setback. After a BE, you can spend coins to backtrack to the decision point just before the QTE and try again. The coin cost is not trivial early in the game, but it is manageable. More importantly, using the backtrack feature for the first time unlocks the Time Rewind achievement.
Pro tip: if you are deliberately hunting Bad Endings for achievements, intentionally failing QTEs is the most efficient method. You get the ending, then backtrack and succeed on the next pass.
The Storyline Map is the most important tool in the game for anyone pursuing multiple endings or trying to clean up missed branches. Accessible from the main menu, it displays every decision node you have unlocked as a branching tree.
The Storyline Map transforms what would otherwise be a punishing restart loop into a manageable exploration exercise. Use it constantly.
Coins accumulate passively as you play. Each chapter completion grants coins based on your exploration percentage (50% and 75% thresholds are major payout points). Feats also award coins. There is an initial 20,000-coin mail bonus when you start the game.
The Millionaire achievement requires you to accumulate 100,000 coins. For most players following a full playthrough without excessive backtracking spending, this hits naturally around Chapter 13. The key is to avoid burning coins on unnecessary backtracks early on. Save your coin reserves for when you genuinely need to recover from a BE in a high-stakes scene. The coins you spend on backtracking are not lost from your lifetime total, but they do slow your visible balance growth, which matters if you are tracking progress toward the 100,000 threshold.
If you are aiming for Millionaire efficiently, prioritise completing chapters fully before backtracking to explore branches. Each new chapter-end payout is significantly larger than the coins you would save by skipping content.
Throughout the game, your choices influence Wu Yuanzhao’s personality profile, tracked by the Trait Sketch system. This is not just cosmetic—your Trait Sketch determines how certain characters respond to you and can affect which story branches are accessible.
At the end of each chapter, you can view your evolving Trait Sketch by clicking the icon in the lower-left corner of the chapter-end screen. This unlocks the Starlit Skies achievement the first time you do it. After completing the game, your final Trait Sketch provides a detailed personality assessment based on every decision you made. You also receive the Personalized Touch achievement for viewing it.
The Trait Sketch has a blossom-shaped visualisation that fills in petals as you explore different choices. Completing the full blossom unlocks the High Roller achievement. The upper-right petal is achievable relatively early; the top petal mostly requires BE responses and typically completes after an ending where Liu Xi dies late in the game; the lower-left petal fills at 100% exploration.
Your first playthrough of Road to Empress I will involve a lot of dying. That is by design. The game is teaching you the hidden rules of the court through failure. Every BE is a lesson, not a punishment. Use the Storyline Map, listen to the voice notes, manage your coins wisely, and remember: in the imperial palace, the kindest face is usually the most dangerous one.
Good luck. You will need it.