Let’s all pursue Lu Bu.
More details of Dynasty Warriors 9 have been revealed, and the first screenshots of its new open world and gameplay have been released.
The first open world game in the long-running hack ‘n’ slash series has received a reveal feature in Famitsu this week (as translated by IGN Japan). Set in regions that will be familiar to anyone who’s played the series before (but placed throughout one seamless map), the game aims to reinvent a series that’s stayed relatively similar for 20 years at this point.
The game will be set across the full 60-year span of the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, with time advanced by completing main missions. Side missions will be time period specific, with each one completed lowering the difficulty of the main missions they’re associated with.
The game will seemingly abandon the series’ “hypothetical missions”, meaning only the actual events recorded in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novels will take place in the game’s story. However, developer Omega Force is planning stories for every one of the 83 characters included (although is still undecided on how to deal with switching warlords mid-campaign, when they canonically die for example).
The new freedom of an open world means that elements such as stealth runs and items like grappling hooks have been added, while bows have been brought back to allow for long-range attacks. A full day-night cycle will also change how enemies are arranged and react to the player.
Development is apparently around 40% complete, with a winter release most likely. Only PS4 is a confirmed platform at this time.
Joe Skrebels is IGN’s UK News Editor, and he is losing his mind at the fidelity of Guan Yu’s beard. Follow him on Twitter.