Dynasty Warriors: Origins

Steam Reviews

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• Recommended Posted June 12, 2025 on Steam [h1]Out with the Han Dynasty, in with the Harem Dynasty[/h1] That's right buckos, enter a world where [i]*every*[/i] character wants a piece of you. Travel the world with your femboy wife as you kill tens of thousands of commoners in the name of peace, while getting sexually harassed by both male and female figures in the game. The ladies proposition you the first time you meet, the lords engage in maximum rizz to win you over. Swoon over Guan Yu's beautiful beard and question your sexuality during every interaction. Wonder, why you as a player character are an emotionless brick wall but still manage to be a godlike magnet for sexual tension. Leave every interaction feeling like you need to contact HR, and ponder "did they *really* just say that?" It almost feels like an intentional gag by the developers. Even Lu Bu; who's supposed to be the baddest mf'er in the series, channels his inner Lube Bu and goes as far as to say "I'm going to take you when I want you" in a cutscene interaction after maxing out his favor. Cringe at the corny dialogue, and don't leave your chair if you have company over after a Diaochan cutscene. 10/10 Gameplay 0/10 HR Nightmare
• Recommended Posted June 11, 2025 on Steam An amazing re-imagining of a great series. I've played every Dynasty Warriors game since the REAL original (Dynasty Warriors 2). The series has often been accused of being "another one of these" but real fans know that each game tends to add or subtract certain features that make each game unique. There are some real stand-out games (like 4 & 8) and some dogs (like 9). However, the series has never reinvented itself like this. The elephant in the room is that there is only one player character this time around and it's an OC. I thought this would mean the game was cheap and lacked content, but that is definitely not the case. Do I miss playing as Ziahou Dun or Zhou Yu? Sure I do. This is a cool idea for a single game, but personally I don't want to see this become the norm. Pros: This is the best playing Warriors game. Each weapon is like a character class with a complete suite of moves, "arts", and nice little quirks (for instance the lance can absorb enemy attacks and unleash them back, the wheels can be retrieved and perfect launched again for a massive bonus in damage). The music is stellar, the battles REALLY feel like battles and not just a video game map where you go from zone to zone fighting mobs. Soldiers will cheer and scream, charges on horseback feel amazing and fast, and the rain thunders down onto a siege to give the environment a muddy, hellish look. This is a gorgeous game. Character models look amazing and don't change the classic looks TOO much, the clothing and armor looks cool and the weapons look realistic and awesome. It also sounds amazing with a great soundtrack and the thunderous sounds of battle. The voice acting is hit or miss. Some characters like Cao Cao sound amazing, while others like Guo Jia sound like they are an AI just learning the English language (they're not, of course). Cons: The bond scenes are stupid. Whoever thought turning every single warrior's conversation into a barely veiled attempt to hit on the player character needs to have their head examined. It's weird when Cao Cao's wife implies she wants to elope with me, and just plain strange when Lu Bu tells me he WANTS me, ha ha. Keep in mind that EVERYONE is like this. It's crazy and downright hilarious. Too bad they ruined the opportunity to give these classic figures some life, humor, and give the player a reason to look forward to these scenes. I hated them almost universally. It should also be mentioned that the Ultimate Warrior mode (the hardest difficulty) is required for a ton of cool content and to complete the game. If you just play these games for the relaxation, keep this in mind. This game is a lot of fun. I'd say it's the best DW game in ages and would easily give it a 9 if you are a series fan, and 8 even if you are not and just wanted to try a cool action game.
• Recommended Posted April 26, 2026 on Steam I will be honest. Nothing will ever top Dynasty Warriors 3. Not the game itself, but what it meant: two brothers, together, without a care in the world. 26 years later, we are both older, life happened, and those times exist only in that quiet corner of my heart. This game somehow found that corner and knocked gently. I could never go back to the past, at least this game Dynasty Warriors Origins brought back some memories.
• Recommended Posted January 22, 2026 on Steam Great game, love causing damage to entire armies. Also men keep falling in love with you.
• Recommended Posted April 20, 2026 on Steam Gameplay-wise, this is certainly one of the best, most refined, most satisfying Musou games out there. But story and character-wise, it's a mixed bag compared to previous Dynasty Warriors entries. We're all here for the gameplay, which is top-notch and I adore it, but the latter is still worth considering and will be the focus of this review. Dynasty Warriors is, of course, a loose adaptation of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel, which itself is a dramatization of real-world history. While Dynasty Warriors does make wildly inaccurate depictions of individual characters by turning them into exaggerated anime tropes, like Zhang He being comically flamboyant and obsessed with perfection/beauty in previous games, Origins made the decision to ground many of these characters' personalities. Zhang He is a normal guy now. Calling them 'grounded' is rather generous though, the more accurate word is probably 'flat'. This is a byproduct of my biggest criticism towards Origins, the main protagonist, who I will be referring to as Ziluan. Dynasty Warriors typically doesn't have a singular main protagonist due to the nature of Romance of the Three Kingdoms spanning over a hundred years and containing the perspectives of multiple factions (though Shu is definitely portrayed as *the* good guys). That means there were dozens upon dozens of playable characters in previous DW games. Origins changes this, containing only a single playable character whom you experience the entire narrative from the perspective of. Problem is, he's a silent avatar character. And I don't mind non-historical additions, I love the hypothetical story lines across the series (which I'll mention later), but Ziluan doesn't add anything of significance. Being a silent avatar, he has no personality. And being meant as a self-insert (despite not being at all customizable), he's also a Gary Stu that makes all other characters, even his *enemies*, constantly bow down and kiss his feet when he so much as breathes near them. The more in-depth bond conversations that Origins added are great conceptually for expanding on characters that were previously surface-level tropes, but in practice, they all, and I do mean *ALL* with no exaggeration, devolve to said character confessing how obsessed they are with the perfect, awe-inspiring Ziluan. This includes some characters you are currently in conflict with. And every time Ziluan and an enemy officer meet on the battlefield, they always talk about how tragic it is for them to have to battle such a beloved, totally platonic friend. Keep in mind Ziluan only speaks in the occasional one-sentence dialogue option that has a very poor illusion of choice. And one of the biggest character changes caused by Ziluan is with the famous Lu Bu, who no longer cares at all about Diaochan because *both* of them are now infatuated with Ziluan. At the very least, the bond conversations Ziluan has with both men and women have an equal amount of romantic tension, so the bisexuals stay winning. Ziluan also has his own story line that interrupts the main Three Kingdoms narrative and barely changes between routes because, like many silent avatars, he has amnesia and has to rediscover his purpose and choose whether he should go back on the path fate has decided for him, or if he should be his own man who makes his own decisions as a free spirit (he'll still be the lapdog of whatever faction you choose to make him serve). It's not that interesting, and one of the new characters introduced for this storyline, Bailuan, is my new least favorite DW character and I hate him every time he's on screen. When he shows up, it's either as a cryptic sign board or a whiny edgelord. But I have to give him credit for being the only Ziluan hater in the entire game. There's also a character who almost exclusively appears in flashbacks that is a literal gender-swapped Ziluan who seemed like a shoe-in for a gender option for Ziluan. This may be shocking for some of you to hear, but women exist. They (or anyone else) might prefer to play as a woman in their games, and this game denies that for some bizarre reason. You could swap the genders of the two and nothing about the story changes, I don't know why they didn't have that option. Anyway, how's the main story? It's actually better than the older DW games, or what's there is. It only goes up to the Battle of Chibi, but it goes *way* more in-depth overall. The Yellow Turban Rebellion is a whole arc, with Zhang Jiao actually being a sort of a tragic, misguided antagonist instead of a crazy hippie. And they made him hot. Dong Zhuo is also less comedically evil. I mean, he's absolutely still evil and deserves no sympathy, but this time he has an aura of authority and charisma so it's a more intimidating, believable kind of evil than a Saturday morning cartoon kind of evil. The battle against Lu Bu is also insane, he went from just another officer with amped stats and Super Armor to an actual, full-on, cinematic boss fight. Dark Souls comparisons are overdone and wildly misused nowadays, but Lu Bu really does feel like a Dark Souls boss (also in part due to the universal addition of parrying and perfect dodges) which just reinforces his reputation as *the* one-man army that makes him the face of this genre. His characterization also maintains the more cool and confident depiction he had in DW9, which does make him scarier than the angry meathead he was in the past. However, another thing Origins does poorly are the Hypotheticals. Previous games' Hypothetical routes were secret branching story paths. Self-explanatory. Origins Hypotheticals are mere secret endings. No new battles or anything, mostly just an extended ending cutscene. It's a bit of a letdown. So overall, the gameplay is peak Musou, but my goodness does Ziluan constantly have a domino effect of disappointment on everything else simply by existing. But that's fine, you can skip all the cutscenes and still have a blast even if there's a fraction of playable movesets compared to previous DW games (which, I didn't mention this, but it leads to many preexisting characters losing their iconic weapon types) because those movesets have a lot more depth than any before. Origins also gets extremely difficult on higher difficulties for those of you who thought Musou games are mindless. Large Forces add to the power fantasy since you can pop a true Musou and nuke over 1000 soldiers in one fell swoop, or you don't do that and it becomes a brutal war of attrition. Extremely satisfying either way. The gameplay is just so darn fun, and with it being the most dominant part of the game, it obviously still nets a positive rating. If Ziluan is deleted for the sequel, it could end up being the definitive 'best' game in this entire genre.
• Recommended Posted November 17, 2025 on Steam As someone who’s been riding with the Dynasty Warriors franchise since DW2, I’ve seen it all—the highs, the lows, the spin-offs, and the experiments. I’ve owned nearly every title in the series, and I can confidently say that Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a massive step in the right direction. From the moment I picked up the controller, I felt something different. The immersion is on another level—whether it’s the cinematic presentation, the dynamic battlefield flow, or the way the game pulls you into the chaos of the Three Kingdoms era. For the first time in years, I felt like I was truly in the battle, not just playing it. The combat feels tighter and more responsive, with just the right balance between classic Musou mayhem and modern action sensibilities. The scale of the battles is impressive, and the new mechanics add depth without overcomplicating the core fun. It’s clear the devs listened to longtime fans while also pushing the series forward. If you’ve ever loved a Dynasty Warriors game—or even if you drifted away after the earlier entries—Origins is the one to come back for. It’s not just nostalgia; it’s evolution.