There are few things in life quite as satisfying as a good Dynasty Warriors game — that fulfilling sensation of mowing down hundreds of faceless soldiers with a single press of a button. Over the decades, Dynasty Warriors has honed its hack-and-slash formula into a high sheen, but 2018’s Dynasty Warriors 9 took a step into open world design, and was demonstrably worse off for it. Dynasty Warriors Origins, as the name implies, is a way for the franchise to get back to basics, rediscovering what made it so special. And if the new playable demo is any indication, it’s going about it in all the right ways.
If you’re unfamiliar with Dynasty Warriors, it’s a long-running franchise that very loosely adapts the famous Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms — which itself is based on the real historical events of great upheaval and the Three Kingdoms period, which ran from roughly 184 AD to 280 AD.
Dynasty Warriors basically invented the hack-and-slash concept of running around a massive battlefield and fighting hundreds of enemy soldiers and generals for domination. Games like Hyrule Warriors, Persona 5 Strikers, and Dragon Quest Heroes have all used that same formula.
While there are arguments about Warriors games not having enough variety, fans will tell you that’s part of the point. That experience of hacking your way through a battlefield if tightly designed to appeal to specific kinds of players, and in a bizarre way the experience of a Dynasty Warriors game can almost be calming — it's methodical, intentional, and repetitive — in a good way.
The aforementioned Dynasty Warriors 9 broke this formula by integrating open world elements, which simply didn’t mesh with the series formula. You spent far too long running between battles and doing generic quests, the very soul of the Dynasty Warriors experience simply wasn’t there. In the years since 2018 Dynasty Warriors has been largely absent, outside of collaboration games like Fire Emblem Warriors. Koei Tecmo has also branched out into Soulslike action games, like Nioh and Wo-Long. What’s fascinating about the Dynasty Warriors Origins demo, is the experience Koei Tecmo has earned from those Soulslikes comes through clear as day.
Origins is still a hack-and-slash experience true to Dynasty Warriors, but it’s integrating elements of those action Soulslikes — fusing these two formulas together into something surprisingly distinct. The structure of Origins still has you running around those massive battlefields, dropping soldiers like blades of grass, conquering bases, and completing objectives. But there’s a big action slant to everything — you have skills and a skill gauge, a big focus on blocking and dodging attacks, a whole parry system, commandable soldier allies, and a slew of equipment options.
In the open field, Origins feels like a true Dynasty Warriors game, just on a bigger scale than ever, with thousands of characters filling the screen at once. But when you close in on an enemy general, it smartly transitions into more of an action experience, leaning heavily on precise timing and smart use of skills, rather than those big sweeping combos. Origins also brings back the ability to duel enemy generals, which puts you in a one-on-one battle as both armies encircle you.
What’s truly impressive is how effortlessly Origins manages to seesaw between these two styles of gameplay — they don’t feel like hard splits, but rather two parts of a larger whole. In that way Origins remarkably feels like it's recapturing what makes Dynasty Warriors special, while also pushing it forward in new and meaningful ways.
But it also presents the perfect chance for new bright-eyed fans to jump in for the first time. You don’t need to know anything whatsoever about Dynasty Warriors to play Origins. The story is a complete reboot of the franchise, focusing on a player-made protagonist, rather than specific characters. It’s also digging into the Three Kingdoms period with greater detail, focusing on early events and ending with the Battle of the Red Cliffs (roughly 208 AD.) By comparison, Dynasty Warriors 8 carried all the way through the establishment of the Jin Dynasty, a few years after 280 AD. There’ll also be branching paths to the story and an explorable overworld map. It’s clear Dynasty Warriors Origins is incredibly ambitious, and Koei Tecmo seems serious about this being a fresh reboot for the franchise.
After playing the demo myself, Dynasty Warriors Origins rocketed up my list to one of my most anticipated games of 2025. Luckily, it’s completely free and you can check it out yourself right now. Even better, if you dig it there are literally about 30 other Dynasty Warriors games you can pick up to keep you busy until Origins releases.
