Dynasty Warriors 9 Will Make A Major Change To The Franchise

The Dynasty Warriors series has been around for quite some time, so it makes sense that the team at Omega Force would want to change things up in a big way for the next major installment in the storied series. And that's exactly what they're doing, too.

It's hard to believe, but the Dynasty Warriors games have been around for just shy of 15 years at this point. To celebrate, publisher Koei Tecmo has announced that the series will take a pretty big step in a new direction for its next outing, setting the game in an open world.

This announcement was recently made during Jump Fest 2017 and comes to us via Siliconera. They're reporting that Producer Akihiro Suzuki has announced that, with Dynasty Warriors 9 being the first major numbered title in the series in a while, they decided to do something big in order to give the beloved franchise something of a "rebirth." The plan is to make China's continent fully explorable, though we imagine condensed quite a bit in order to keep people from having to ride on horseback for days in order to get from one village to the next.

Some really impressive concept art was also shown off, highlighting the fact that the team is going to be adding numerous towns and more verticality to the series, too. As for the roster, Dynasty Warriors 9 will apparently feature every playable character from Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires, plus a whole bunch of new faces to boot. In case you're curious, that previous game boasted an impressive roster of 83 playable characters and, as for those new faces we just mentioned, the legendary zhou Cang will be one of them.

This won't actually be the first appearance of Zhou Cang, though, as he's also slated to be a representative in the upcoming Musou Stars, an upcoming title that combines a whole bunch of characters from different Musou and brawler titles into a single package that we really, really hope makes its way to the states.

In case you're unfamiliar with the term, "Musou" refers to those games where the player typically gets to kick the stuffing out of hundreds and hundreds of enemies at a time. You know how when a campfire story is being told about the legendary warrior who could swing their sword and take out an entire army of soldiers? Well, Musou games typically give you that very power. Most of the enemies are just fodder, ready to fall by your might blade.

What's cool about Dynasty Warriors is that it throws in actual Chinese history. Sure, the characters have super fancy outfits and magical abilities but, for the most part, the historical aspects are by the book.

Anyway, here's a look at the very brief teaser for the next Dynasty Warriors game, which has not had its platforms revealed just yet.

Do you think open world is the way to go with Dynasty Warriors? Let us know in the comments.