Dynasty Warriors 4, which released for the PlayStation 2 in 2003, celebrates its 18th anniversary this week. It’s considered to be one of the best entries in the long-running franchise and the anniversary has sparked our interest in how the team behind the series found a way to blend frantic hack ‘n slash action with touches of real-world history.
The Dynasty Warriors series has been around for well over twenty years, and through its existence, the franchise has made quite a large impact on the gaming industry. All in all, the series has had eight mainline entries, multiple spin-offs and has even ventured into various crossovers with other major game franchises like The Legend of Zelda and Fire Emblem.
Through the years, the series has established itself as a major player in both the hack-n-slash genre and historical gaming. While the first entry into the series was a one-on-one fighting game reminiscent of Soulcalibur and Street Fighter, the series made a massive change from the sequel onwards. The gameplay shifted from one-on-one fights to large-scale battles, where the player takes on hordes of enemies in grand scale warfare as a single warrior.
Dynasty Warriors largely made its fame for having incredibly over-the-top and chaotic gameplay, where gamers played as extremely overpowered warriors, taking on entire armies by themselves in massive battles. While the hack-and-slash gameplay is considered by many to be a bit mindless, it’s also proven to be very satisfying in its craziness.
The Dynasty Warriors series features warfare most reminiscent of third-century China, or the Three Kingdoms period. In this period, the country was split into three major states: Wei, Shu, and Wu. While rooted within history, the series also takes many creative liberties, with much of the events occurring through the series being largely fictionalized.
Many of the series’ characters often referenced real historical figures, but were typically exaggerated for the sake of entertainment. For example, Zhang He is changed to appear more feminine, while Wei Yan is depicted as a beastial tribal warrior. Both of these historical figures were described in historical records as having none of these characteristics. However, they were likely changed for the series as a way to set them apart from one another. The series also features some supernatural elements, with many characters imbued with magic abilities. Additionally, the series features many female warriors despite women not being prominent on the battlefield.
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Throughout the series, there have been a total of 96 playable characters, with the most recent entry featuring 94 of the 96 characters playable. The series’ latest entry, Dynasty Warriors 9, released in 2018 for all major consoles and introduced a slew of new features, including an open-world. Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires, an expanded version of the game, has been announced for all major consoles, including next-gen. The game was originally scheduled to release in early 2021, but has since been delayed to an unknown later date.
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(This article is credited to Ben Price. For as long as he can remember, Ben has always loved playing, discussing, and writing about video games. Since receiving his B.A. in English, he now writes about them for a living.)