Koei Tecmo struck gold earlier this year withDynasty Warriors: Origins, a more narratively-fixated spin than usual within Koei Tecmo’s decades-old hack-and-slash franchise about millennia-old historical Chinese heroes. With its far more in-depth battle system, excellent usage of the series' traditionally vast maps, and an overall feeling of freshness, Dynasty Warriors: Origins has proven itself the partial reinvention that studio Omega Force has needed. Just look at thatplayer count.
But ‘Dynasty Warriors: Origins’ is a bit of a misnomer. The subtitle speaks more to the game’s departure from the sprawling rosters and multiple-kingdom perspectives of past entries; the titular origin concerns the distinctly fictional protagonist whose tale players will shape and experience throughout the game’s campaign. There is, however, a game en route by an entirely unrelated developer that I might argue is more deserving of the ‘Origins’ moniker.
Fighting Spirit
If you ask ten people with mere passing familiarity with the Dynasty Warriors IP to describe its gameplay to you, all ten are going to remark that you take control of a legendary hero of China’s Warring Kingdoms period in order to slaughter hundreds, perhaps thousands, of enemy troops across vast battlefields. Even at a guess, that’sgotto be right - just look atSamurai Warriors, and Dynasty Warriors Gundam, andFire Emblem Warriors, and One Piece: Pirate Warriors, andHyrule Warriors, and the list goes on and on. Koei has been repeating this trick in different settings for ages.
Which is why it often surprises folks so much that the very first Dynasty Warriors was not, in fact, a slash-fest bursting at its seams with hordes upon hordes of enemies. It was a fighting game. A one-on-one fighting game, at that. It is, indeed, set within the Warring Kingdoms period. You do, in fact, choose a famous historical warrior. From there, it’s a drastically different, and far more traditional, gameplay experience.
I’ve long hoped for a sequel to that inaugural idea, a game that expands and enhances the traditionalfighting-genreapproach for the modern era. Wemayfinally have that with Three Kingdom Heroes: Fighting Edition, whose footage you can check out in the above trailer.
Powered by Unreal Engine, and developed by the Chinese studio Yu-Jen Odin, Three Kingdom Heroes: Fighting Editionhas been describedas carrying with it “the core structure of fighting games, emphasizing the offensive choice of attack and wrestling, the judgment of the middle and lower parts when defending, the damage compensation mechanism of combo attacks,” and more. At critical health, characters can initiate “ultimate skills” - it all sounds rather much like Musou, which is undoubtedly the idea.
Right now, we know of eight playable characters: Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Sun Shang Xiang, Xiahou Dun, Diao Chan, Xun Yu, Dong Zhuo, and - yes, of course - the famously do-not-pursue behemoth himself, Lu Bu. It’s safe to say this quartet of iconic who’s-whos share a striking similarity in art design to Koei’s own interpretations of history’s beloved combatants, but in fairness, we’ve known Guan Yu loves the colour green since the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel itself.
Three Kingdom Heroes: Fighting Edition is in active development forSteam,iOS, and Android. A demo is playable at the 2025 Comic Expo Gamers Con this weekend, but since I lack the necessary means to take a spur-of-the-moment trip from the Eastern United States all the way to Taiwan, I’ll not be participating.
I’ve not found any concrete information on when exactly Three Kingdom Heroes: Fighting Edition will launch, nor if it will receive an official localization abroad. But as someone who’s always wanted another crack at Dynasty Warriors 1’s core gameplay, I’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.
