The story of Dynasty Warriors is an old one. Koei Tecmo‘s series of open-field action, which essentially codified the phrase “musou,” set some high standards with its early entries. In recent years, musou games have hit gold with many different crossovers, but Omega Force’s flagship entry has felt rudderless by comparison. Ditching the number in its title is far from the only thing separating it from previous entries. Dynasty Warriors: Origins feels as much like a shake-up as it does an overt shift in mentality.
Origins doubles down on story, drama, intrigue, big battles, strategy, and action combat, in lieu of some traditional series hallmarks like a large roster or massive timeline. But in all the ways Dynasty Warriors: Origins could feel like a strange follow-up, it also captures the spirit of the Three Kingdoms’ greatest warriors and battles in incredible new ways.
At its core, Dynasty Warriors: Origins is still a historical fiction action RPG and definitely a musou. But rather than choosing a character or faction and proceeding through their version of events of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, you play one unique character: the Wanderer, an amnesiac fighter whose past seemed tangled up in a shadow organization that maintains the order of the realm. Before long, you’re running into characters like Guan Yu, Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Jian, and get caught up in the chaos and tumult of the era.
Rather than playing one of the ambitious lords of the Three Kingdoms, you meet them and befriend them. There’s a Bond system, complete with social events, requests to fulfill, and rewards for achieving maximum friendship. This lens allows Dynasty Warriors: Origins to shine a new light on different characters.
Many of these moments are genuine highlights. Sitting down for a drink with Lu Su or Cheng Pu, training with Ling Tong, or talking about agriculture with Zhuge Liang casts a different light on many of these officers. They’re bits of story you’d struggle to fit into shouts on a battlefield, but they make those warriors feel more well-rounded. And when they are, eventually, calling for your aid on the battlefield, it makes their pleas all the more urgent.
Befriending the Lords changes Dynasty Warrior Dynamics – and it works.
Gorgeous cutscenes play out some of the story’s biggest moments, and the tale of the Three Kingdoms has been expanded to accommodate the heightened focus on its characters. Key players like Zhang Jiao and Diaochan get more room to shine than ever before, and it works pretty well. By the time I got to truly face off with Dong Zhuo, he felt like a true adversary to everything I’d been working towards, and that made the showdown all the more satisfying.
However, some counterbalancing has been done for the expanded story. Dynasty Warriors: Origins only runs from the Yellow Turban Rebellion up through the Battle of Chibi. It’s a slightly truncated version of events that cut off right as the three major kingdoms are truly established. While it’s a fantastic climax to the story, it leaves quite a bit untold.
Also, in something that feels especially strange for Dynasty Warriors: Origins‘ focus is squarely on the Wanderer. While you can team up with other officers like Sun Shang Xiang or Zhang Fei, you really only take control of them maybe once a battle. It starkly contrasts the massive breadth of playable characters in games like Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends.
So, what do we gain in the tradeoff? Well, there’s the aforementioned focus on the drama. While the Wanderer’s tale isn’t particularly fascinating, getting to spend time socializing with all the officers of Wu, Wei, Shu, and more is excellent. It also allows Origins to take on a branching structure.
About halfway into the game, you’ll have to choose which faction to continue backing, branching the game into three paths. I played through Origins as a member of Wu and got a surprisingly robust story out of it. This makes these branches seem worthwhile to explore and adds a decent amount of replay value. There are also “what-if” scenarios that let the character try to change history, potentially opening up altered or new outcomes.
There’s an open-world element, too, which adds some additional content. Randomized small battles, shops where you can buy new weapons and items, and collectibles dot the ground between major provinces. I appreciated this format less for the peppered collectibles and more for the sense of scale it offered.
Seeing battles progressively punch deeper into enemy territory as a campaign wore on gave me a new sense of appreciation for the constant chaos and conflict of the Three Kingdoms. I could do with less glut when it comes to gems, coins, and side battles, most of which were either retreads familiar maps or small-scale, forgettable showdowns.
Omega Force puts the spotlight on the battlefield.
Where Dynasty Warriors: Origins truly shines is the battlefield, though. It really feels like Omega Force has found a new gear with Origins, in both its actual combat and the strategy around it. The Wanderer can wield many different weapon types, and though a few felt a little bit similar, they all felt distinct enough to encourage experimentation. Each one has a satisfying slew of light and heavy strikes, special abilities, and Battle Arts that can break down the defense of enemy officers.
Speaking of, officers are lethal in Dynasty Warriors: Origins. Anyone who’s run the demo and tried to duel Lu Bu has probably surmised as much, but locking eyes with an enemy officer amid the fray and facing off feels cinematic. There’s even a great hierarchy, where rank-and-file nameless generals can be small but engaging encounters, while named and famous officers can shift the tides of a fight by themselves, bringing powerful musou attacks to bear against your forces. While some attack cycles can get repetitive for the basic officers, and the lock-on camera doesn’t always offer the clearest line-of-sight, the big showdowns shine.
Tactics are a huge focus in Origins, too, and beating some of the later levels will demand familiarity with their use. Using special commands, you can order nearby troops to utilize special tactics. One has you launch fire arrows onto the enemy, while another has your men mount up for a cavalry charge. Executing them at the right time, like shooting a volley from high ground, prompts a Dramatic Success and can swing a fight in your favor.
It’s a brilliant way to encourage the player to be mindful of working with their allies, pushing the line forward, and cooperating rather than making repeated surgical strikes towards officers. Grand Tactics are a heightened version of this, usually initiated at key story moments. While they’re usually as simple as a massive charge into the enemy lines, they always act as the kick-off moment for a thunderous melee.
The battlefield isn’t just for combat. It’s for drama.
Let me paint a picture here: you’ve been pressing your way across the map, seizing bases as you go. Maybe you’ve thwarted an enemy gambit or tried to enact one of your own and gradually whittled away at each others’ forces, with key names dropping out of the fight on both sides. All the posturing and creeping tension has led to two blobs of soldiers left standing. Your commander calls for a grand charge, and you enter the circle to initiate it.
From there, your allies let loose a rallying cry and run forward, charging as a hail of arrows flies up across the horizon and down towards you. Spears raise up, hooves thunder, and when the wave of sprinting militia crashes onto the rocks, all hell lets loose. Both you and other officers are carving through swathes of conscripted fighters, with massive swings of lances sending bodies flying in every direction.
As you clear away another hundred soldiers, you spot a commander attempting to rally his men for a counterattack, and you step forward. As a raging pit of blades and arrows roils around the two of you, you trade blows back and forth, dodging and parrying, until only one is left standing.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins somehow makes this moment happen again and again in its big battles, with dramatic moments and tense struggles playing out perfectly. It’s the most I’ve been invested in the actual story and stakes of a Dynasty Warriors games since some of the PS2-era classics, and it kept me coming back, again and again.
Though the heightened scenes of its greatest battles make the disparity between those and the smaller side battles apparent, the gorgeous and striking setpieces of Dynasty Warriors: Origins make it feel worth the price of admission by themselves. Sending a line of cavalry into an enemy’s flank or wading through a sea of soldiers, sword swing by sword swing, felt fantastic. And the showdowns with notorious fighters, especially Lu Bu, feel every bit as dangerous and exciting as they should.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins is poised to bring new fans into the decades-old series.
Normally, I’d say that losing some of those series standards—a massive playable roster, huge breadth of maps, and their collective replayability—would be a huge drawback. The overworld map could use some refining, the main character’s story falls flat compared to the actual tale of the Three Kingdoms, and there’s some tedium in traveling around and completing all the side activities between each big fight. Plus, those aforementioned camera issues.
But the shift in perspective with Origins lets developers at Omega Force add so much more. The Bonds with different officers, the epic clashes in major battles, and the branching storyline make Origins feel even more like an action RPG, with stats and stakes to match. The first time I clashed with Shu, after choosing to side with Wu, left me feeling a little distraught. I’d spent so long building up my friendship with Guan Yu, only to cross blades with him because I backed the Sun family instead.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins feels poised to net a whole lot of new fans for the series. There’s big, incredible fighting and fairly tough bosses. There’s enough betrayal, intrigue, and bids for power to keep you guessing what might happen next. This might be the closest thing to a playable version of a prestige period drama we’ve seen.
I do hope we see an Empire or something similar to add back a little more of what Dynasty Warriors faithful have come to expect from the series. As-is, though, Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a brilliant new iteration of a classic formula, with some breathtaking bouts and intense action. It might not be exactly the Dynasty Warriors formula that got me into the series, but it feels like the right step for right now. If you’re looking to understand why people really dig these battles and characters, Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a great gateway.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins releases January 17, 2025 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC.
Dynasty Warriors: Origin
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8.5/10
TL;DR
Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a brilliant new iteration of a classic formula, with some breathtaking bouts and intense action. It might not be exactly the Dynasty Warriors formula that got me into the series, but it feels like the right step for right now.