Kentaro Yoshida was the art director and designer, with art contributions and oversight from the original artist Manabu Kusunoki. Yoshida also acted as team lead on the game. One of the new artists was Ryuta Ueda, who later worked on Jet Set Radio as art director. The enemy models were designed by Takashi Iwade, who also created the ship bosses and designed the game's logo. Junichi Suto was the main programmer, with Hitoshi Nakanishi as a second programmer. The CGI cutscenes were handled by Yoshida, Kusunoki, Kazuyuki Iwasawa and Katsumi Yokota, with Yokota also creating the ending credits illustrations. Overall the team consisted of between fifteen and twenty people. Futatsugi designed Zwei as a prequel, creating a thread which would run from Zwei through Panzer Dragoon and into Saga through the growing emotional connection between rider and dragon. The central story concept for Zwei was the raising of the dragon to the point where it could fly and fight on its own. The scenario was in part intended to set up the events of Saga. Lundi and the Emperor were voiced by Shigeru Nakahara and Ryūzaburō Ōtomo; as with the original game, the dialogue is in the fictional language of the Panzer Dragoon world. As with Panzer Dragoon the art design drew inspiration from the work of Jean Giraud, with the protagonist designed to be normal and ordinary in contrast to the exaggerated designs of many Japanese game protagonists. The Emperor's design was inspired by Harkonnen, a main antagonist of the novel Dune. The overall artistic tone became darker at Kusunoki's suggestion, with Yoshida attributing Ueda with creating the "more dynamic" boss designs. In response to criticisms of Panzer Dragoon, Team Andromeda made Zwei less difficult and more story-intensive. The aiming system was redesigned, with the dragon positioned in the lower part of the screen so aiming and seeing enemy fire was less difficult. The branching paths were implemented as a compromise to allow repeat playthroughs without the difficulty implemented in the original. The planned RPG systems of Saga were also referenced in Zwei with the branching paths and dragon evolution. The different dragon forms were suggested by Futatsugi. The ground-based gameplay was incorporated to accentuate the feeling of flight. At Kondo's suggestion, the difficulty was managed by an in-game system dubbed "ADEC" (automatic difficulty enemy control), which adjusted enemy spawn levels and rates of fire based on the player's