The Dynasty and Samurai Warriors Play Team-Up Again for Warriors Orochi 4

Koei Tecmo knew what they were doing after announcing Warriors Orochi 4 nearly two months ago with not much more than a logo.

Publishers love announcing sequels like this to get fans speculating, and it wouldn’t surprise me if staffers who knew everything about it were reading their comments while chuckling at the debate they started. (And I’m not saying the comment weren’t humorous.) While fans discussed which characters would return from previous Warriors Orochi installments and which platforms it would hit, the biggest questions involved whether it would inherit features from the recent Dynasty Warriors 9. Some weren’t well-liked, so this was an opportunity to see whether the company would move forward with the new ideas it contained and expound upon them, or discard them in response to its underwhelming critical reception.

Whether this game would include those features would depend on if Koei Tecmo heard the mostly-negative reception to the game, and details released thus far make it clear they did.

Like previous games in the franchise, Warriors Orochi 4 will include a dazzling array of characters from the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors universes, thanks to another merging of the two worlds. The key to resolving the crisis they’ve been sucked into and return to their home worlds will involve gathering eight bracelets. But the quest won’t that simple, thanks to all the cunning and unsavory characters who will come along with the more heroic characters, so there will be no shortage of drama.

Interestingly, Suikoden creator Yoshitaka Maruyama will be supervising the story. There’s no telling how much of an influence he’ll have on the plot, but it’s good to see him involved in something. He happens to be attracted to games with massive character counts.

Shortly after the game begins, the mastermind behind this event will reveal themselves to be Zeus, the king of the gods of Mount Olympus. Why he did this is a question that will be answered at some point during the quest, but the heroes will immediately recognize the location as the world in which they battled Orochi, with a few modifications. The heroes will have to fight Zeus and the other gods, and both Orochi and True Orochi will be key characters in the story.

The game will include a whopping 170 characters from both aforementioned franchises, which will travel in groups of three in the main quest. Since the gods of Olympus are involved, it would be a serious missed opportunity if characters from Greek mythology aren’t. Koei previously published a Warriors-style game that occurred during the period’s Trojan War with Warriors: Legends of Troy in 2011, developed by their now-defunct Canadian studio. These could be among the five characters they plan to reveal in the future, though they might receive a stylish redesign if they’re included.

Unfortunately, Koei Tecmo confirmed that none of the guest characters from Warriors Orochi 3 and its updated versions will return, which mostly came from the publisher’s other titles. Among them were Ryu Hayabusa, Momiji, and Rachel from the Ninja Gaiden series, and Kasumi and Ayane from the Dead or Alive series. The even more surprising inclusions involved Sterkenburg Cranach from Atelier Meruru, and particularly Sophitia from the Soulcalibur series, the latter of which is from Bandai Namco. Related to the above plot details: Apollo was also among the guest characters, so they’re could be one exception.

Several Warriors fans are disappointed about this, but the developers might have a good reason for it. It’s been a little over a year since Warriors All-Stars released in Japan, and perhaps they feel it’s too soon for another title stuffed full of guest characters. We’ll see if they continue that series, even though the first game was criticized for having an underwhelming story, lame enemies, and mediocre level design despite its solid concept.

Koei Tecmo felt the need to immediately clarify that this game won’t be open world, unlike Dynasty Warriors 9. It’s typically a selling point for games to have open worlds, a trend that’s remained prevalent throughout this console generation, so it’s humorous that the opposite is happening here. Because of this, cooperative multiplayer is returning to the franchise, a feature that tends to come and go depending on the game.

In a new feature for this installment: Characters can find sacred treasures and equip them to use flashy magic attacks known as “Divine Arts.” Given how large the character count is, it’s unlikely that each of them will have unique attacks. More features about the gameplay will be revealed between now and the release, though again, don’t expect any guest character announcements.

Warriors Orochi 4 will release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC sometime later this year, with the XB1 version being made mainly for western markets. It’s implied that this will be a simultaneous worldwide release, which means one aspect of this game’s release is mimicking DW9’s, though in a good way.