The Tokyo Game Show has had several new trailers from a variety of publishers. There is one segment I got super excited about, a gameplay demonstration of Dynasty Warriors Origins. They uploaded it on their YouTube channel shortly afterward.
The first thing that shows up is how you move throughout the map. The nameless hero can move through an overworld and gather resources, shop at stores, or write letters at an Inn. When you get to a level you then decide who you bring with you on the mission. This will be your companion on the map. Once you start a level, often you will get a special conversation at a war council that explains the events that brought the armies to this spot in their war. The companion you bring with you to a level can determine where your starting position on the map will be located.
Once he gets into the gameplay of the level one thing becomes abundantly clear: Dynasty Warriors Origins is not open-world. The large and thoughtful map designs of the past are back. Once the map begins both armies clash together and the front lines become a huge risk to try to run through. The player then decides to move back and help Xu Huang by cutting off the supplies through a different route. There are moves officers have that flash orange and you can’t block them but you can stop the attack with a special arts ability.
Officers and the player have orange dots above their health bars. This looks to be a stamina gauge for guarding. If you break enough guard with normal hits or guard break attacks, it stuns the enemy allowing you to do a combo that will deal a ton more damage. After some time has passed, the gauge refills and you can go back to battle.
Officers can engage you in a duel. You can accept and then you will be having a one-on-one fight against the general and everybody else is just watching. The top gauge represents the morale of both officers, whoever has the most morale at the end of the fight wins and the enemy gets defeated. The soldiers that are in the circle will drop down in defeat if they are a part of the enemy general’s side. The morale will then crash significantly and let you do one-hit kills on all the soldiers.
Soldiers seem to have AI that attacks more aggressively towards officers and then stays still around other soldiers so battles will most likely feature mostly running to officer locations in the game. That said, the actual scope of what you can see and immerse yourself in is amazing. There was very little pop in and the entire army was on the screen. I am looking forward to seeing more about Dynasty Warriors Origins!
Dynasty Warriors Origins releases January 17th, 2025 to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and PC.
