In 2018, when developer Koei Tecmo announced Dynasty Warriors 9 was going open world I was skeptical, to say the least. It felt like a needless way for one of my favorite series to chase a burgeoning trend, and unfortunately, upon release, those fears found purchase with one of the most disappointing games I’ve ever played in my life. Dynasty Warriors 9 was a catastrophic misstep that completely lost the soul of Dynasty Warriors, and for a while, I worried it might put the series in the ground. That’s exactly what makes the upcoming Dynasty Warriors: Origins so exciting — it looks to be embracing what makes the hack-and-slash games so special. After a wealth of new information was revealed at Tokyo Game Show, Origins feels like it could be the game to put Dynasty Warriors back on track.
The subtitle “Origins” carries a lot of weight in the title, as this truly looks like the Dynasty Warriors franchise going back to basics and re-evaluating its entire identity. Part of the problem with recent Dynasty Warriors games is that they’ve simply gotten too big — Dynasty Warriors 8 covered the entire Warring States period of Chinese history and the rise of the Jin Dynasty, and had an absurd 83 playable characters to boot. Not satisfied, Koei upped that to 94 in Dynasty Warriors 9 and integrated open world elements that made the action feel more dragged out and less meaningful, bloated the world and story, and generally just fit awkwardly into the series’ trademark massive battles.
