What if Omega Force made a successor to its original PS1 Dynasty Warriors game, released in 1997?
Fans of the franchise will know, the first game in the series is actually a 1v1 weapons-based fighter like Soul Blade, featuring famous historical names like Lu Bu et al.
But its successor, Dynasty Warriors 2 for the PS2, introduced the musou concept we all recognise today. It’s actually an interesting trait of the series that the original was so different.
Kingdom Heroes: Arena, planned for release on the PS5 at some point in the future, aims to explore that concept.
It’s being developed by Taiwanese studio UserJoy Technology, and we actually played a few rounds of this late last year at an event in Taipei.
In the title, you’ll pick from a list of idealised historical figures, like Xiahou Dun, Xun Yu, Guan Yu, Sun Shangxiang, Diao Chan, and, yes, Lu Bu.
While the demo was a bit clunky, we liked how every character felt unique, and had a signature weapon to mix up their gameplay style.
Here are the key features the developer lists on its X (or Twitter) account:
- Precise Offense & Defense
- Every strike and block requires split-second decision-making. Timing is everything
- Stances & Weaponry
- Featuring diverse weapon combos and unique stances, ensuring every general offers a completely different tactical logic
- 3D Spatial Strategy
- Master the 3D battlefield. Side-stepping and lateral movement are essential skills for those seeking to reach the top tier
The dev says the full game will feature crossplay across all devices, but no word on whether rollback netcode will be supported.
There’s a demo available on Steam, but no target release date just yet. We’d expect the PS5 version to be several years away at this point, because it looks like the dev is prioritising PC first.
Nonetheless, we like the look of this and we did enjoy what little we played of it late last year. It’s neat to see the team commit to an eventual PS5 release.
