Back in 2006, I brought Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 for the PSP to Show and Tell at school. Yes, I was that kid. It was a simple enough pitch. Behold, bemused classmates: a hack-and-slash power fantasy where you dominate 3rd-century Chinese battles, cleaving a hundred soldiers with each swing. There are loads of officers to play as, and some of them have massive swords, and some of them have glaives, and some of them are sorcerers, and they’re so cool, and, you can ride around on your horse, and you capture bases, and, there’s this one really cool guy, and he wears these big antlers, and he has the best horse in the game, and the whole time there’s electric guitars going weeeooow in the background.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins reviewPublisher: Koei TecmoDeveloper: Omega ForcePlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out on 17th January on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series S/X.
“I’m not sure this is what actually happened,” said my history teacher.
“I don’t think the sorcery is real,” I replied, “but the antler guy is on Wikipedia.”
19 years on, Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a tougher pitch. While that horde-cleaving, guitar-shredding DNA still shines, Origins feels like a quarter-life crisis. For a good while, Dynasty Warriors coasted on its charm with a string of samey but endearing games. Now it’s 27, and after alienating its admirers with years of sleepwalking and a thundering dud in Dynasty Warriors 9, its confidence is understandably shaken. Origins, then, is as much a video game as it is a cry of “baby, I’ve changed!”. But there’s an essential distinction between change and growth. As anyone who’s grown fed up with a passive partner knows, we don’t want our loved ones to become someone else – we just want them to be .
To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Watch on YouTube
In combat, Origins better. Dynasty Warriors was always more satisfying than precise or layered, a massacre of braindead peons broken up by fiddly bouts with slightly formidable officers. In Origins, though, even common foot soldiers fight viciously, coordinating attacks in formations. You can still slaughter them in droves like the old days, but they’re no longer entirely toothless.