Dynasty Warriors Origins Demo Promises Overhauled Actions

A public demo build for Dynasty Warriors Origins has been available worldwide on all of the upcoming intended platforms—PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC. It showcases the overhauls of the action gameplay systems for the upcoming 2025 tactical action game, which may bring fresh wind to the genre that started with Dynasty Warriors 2 in 2000.

I had previously written about how the halved unique character roster may pose some issues in the full game’s storyline. However, that concern is barely an issue in this demo, as no key characters are missing in the featured Battle of Sishui Gate. The team even managed to accurately place Jia Xu on Dong Zhuo’s side and Chen Gong with Cao Cao’s faction.

In fact, I have also spotted positive evidence that Omega Force is creating new semi-unique designs for several generals, which have been done occasionally in Samurai Warriors entries but would be a first in Dynasty Warriors (unless you count Huche’er’s one-off generic design in Dynasty Warriors 7). A couple of generals like Gongsun Zan and Kong Rong have attire designs that resemble the armor parts available for custom officers in Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires. You can also notice how the side portraits of both characters differ from generic officers, who have darkened spots around their eyes.

With the character concerns out of the way, it’s time to focus on the gameplay. The game’s overall combat feels more challenging and relentless, especially if you do not know what you are doing. You really cannot simply plow through enemy officers with mindless attacks this time around. A majority of their attacks are uninterruptible and also deal considerable damage, so you will have to make good use of parries and counterattack arts to deal with them.

In addition, the morale bar also plays a very important role in the game’s battles. When story-based events tilt the morale to enemy advantage, allied officers will easily struggle and you will need to optimize your paths along battle areas to rescue them while defeating the more motivated enemies. Once you have restored the morale advantage, your allies can breeze through the map even without your assistance.

Producer Tomohiko Sho has promised that the weapons in Dynasty Warriors Origins will have more unique actions, and he sure has delivered on that. Out of the four weapon types available in this demo, only the Sword retains the series staple Charge Combo system, where you unleash a different combo finisher based on the time you press the Triangle/Y button in the middle of the Square/X button attack string.

The other three weapons feature unique applications of the Triangle/Y button. For instance, Xiahou Dun’s Podao scimitar will have you hold the button to literally charge up the attack for more power, while Sun Shangxiang’s Chakram Wheels require precise button presses when they return after being thrown to chain more combos.

By the way, when I checked the weapon moveset lists, I noticed that the music track in the pause menu has a calmer ambiance with fewer instruments playing. That one is a clear inspiration from the Fire Emblem Warriors games Omega Force had previously worked on.

The references from other entries do not end there, as the Eyes of the Sacred Bird (along with the protagonist’s Japanese voice actor) brings Persona 5 Strikers to mind, while the Tactics executable by the bodyguard unit reminisce me of Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War. To sum it all up, Omega Force is looking back at its prior projects and cramming their unique features into this major game project.

In addition, I am also impressed with the optimization of the game’s presentation and performance stability. I have played the Dynasty Warriors Origins demo on the regular PS5 and a PC nearing the recommended specs, and I managed to see a stable 60 fps frame rate on both platforms with barely any drops even during the climactic massive army clashes. And speaking about the large armies, the march towards the climactic battle is being presented in a breathtaking way that completely suits the war situation. The game can also support even higher frame rates on the PS5 Pro and state-of-the-art PCs.

The only other concern I still have besides the character roster is the availability of language options on the PS5 version, though. While the PC and Xbox versions look set to include every supported language in a single build, the PlayStation 5 release appears to have the Chinese language options split from the rest. This might hamper people who can only play on the console from enjoying the game with English subtitles and region-accurate Chinese voiceovers.

The Dynasty Warriors Origins demo is immediately available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC. Koei Tecmo will release the full game simultaneously worldwide on January 17, 2025.