Dynasty Warriors: Origins Review — A Branching, Amnesiac Take on the Three Kingdoms

Dynasty Warriors: Origins is the tenth main entry in Koei Tecmo’s long-running hack and slash series, and it is the first one in years built around a single protagonist rather than a roster. Omega Force developed it. It launched on PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S on January 17, 2025, and came to Nintendo Switch 2 on January 22, 2026. It sold 1 million units by February and holds a 7.8 critic aggregate across seven outlets. That number is about right, and the reasons are worth spelling out.

Trailer, via PlayStation.

Ziluan Wakes With No Memory

The protagonist is Ziluan, an amnesiac wanderer who knows only one thing: he must find the hero destined to unite a China torn apart by rebellion and warlords. That is the whole premise, and Origins commits to it. Where earlier Dynasty Warriors games dropped you into a roster of historical figures and let you pick a favorite, this one builds the campaign around a single man moving through the final years of the Han dynasty.

The Yellow Turban uprising frames the opening. Dong Zhuo’s schemes run through the middle. A young healer named Yuanhua burns incense to help Ziluan recover fragments of his lost memories, and three mysterious figures from his past variously aid, guide and stand against him. The game is based on the Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but producer Tomohiko Sho has said Origins differs from previous titles by covering only the first half of the novel while telling that half more thoroughly. That is where the new naming scheme comes from.

It is also the smartest decision in the game. Origins is not trying to cram ninety years of dynastic collapse into a highlight reel. It slows down.

Liu Bei, Cao Cao or Sun Jian

The structure is the real departure. At a certain point the player identifies Liu Bei, Cao Cao, or Sun Jian — later Sun Ce and Sun Quan — as the hero Ziluan is seeking. That choice determines which faction Ziluan joins, which battles can be played, and which characters he can form bonds with and call into battle.

Each branch then splits into two endings. One follows the classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms plot up to the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Red Cliffs. The other requires the player to complete difficult additional objectives to change the outcome of a battle or avert the death of a historical figure, producing a more favorable position for the chosen faction going into the following era.

That is a lot of game, and a lot of replay value, and Origins earns it by making the alternate history feel like the point rather than a bonus mode. In this telling, Ziluan personally defeats the Yellow Turban leader Zhang Jiao, kills several of the Ten Eunuchs, and assists Wang Yun in the assassination plot against Dong Zhuo. This is not a story where the player watches history happen.

the ally he chooses to follow shapes the course of the wars that will decide the fate of the realm

Commands, Teammates and Weapon Customization

Gameplay keeps the series’ two halves. There is hack and slash, and there is strategy. The player controls a main character but can issue commands to troops on the battlefield. Aside from the main character, players can select another general as a teammate.

Multiple weapons and other character customizations are available. The perspective is third person, the mode is single player, and the action runs on the series’ familiar promise of 1 vs. 1,000 combat and the rush of massive armies.

The command layer is what separates Origins from a pure button-masher. Issuing orders to troops while cutting through a battlefield gives the large-scale fights a shape that earlier entries sometimes lacked. It is not deep strategy. It is enough to make you feel like a commander instead of a lawnmower.

Where the Amnesia Story Drags

Ziluan is a blank, and that is deliberate. He has no memory and no faction. The game uses that emptiness to let the player project onto him, and for the first stretch it works. Yuanhua’s incense sessions give the story a quiet recurring beat, and the three enigmatic figures from Ziluan’s past supply just enough mystery to keep the campaign moving between battles.

The problem is that a blank protagonist cannot carry a story this long on his own. Origins runs through the Yellow Turban uprising, the Ten Eunuchs, and Dong Zhuo’s assassination plot, and Ziluan’s personal arc has to compete with all of it. Sometimes it does. Sometimes the historical machinery is simply more interesting than the man standing in the middle of it.

That is not a fatal flaw. It is the trade-off the game chose. Omega Force wanted a more thorough telling of the novel’s first half, and a thorough telling needs a witness. Ziluan is that witness. He is just not always a compelling one.

The Nintendo Switch 2 Release

Origins came to Nintendo Switch 2 on January 22, 2026, roughly a year after its original release. That is a meaningful second life for a game that already sold 1 million units by February. The port carries the full campaign — all three faction branches, both endings per branch, and the difficult objectives required to unlock the alternate outcomes — to a platform that was not part of the original launch.

The 7.8 aggregate across seven outlets, as published by IGDB, reflects a game that is confident, generous and occasionally uneven. The branching structure is the best thing here. The combat is solid without being revolutionary. The story is more ambitious than the series usually attempts and more uneven than its best moments suggest.

What Origins Gets Right

Dynasty Warriors: Origins is worth playing for the structure alone. Pick Liu Bei, Cao Cao or Sun Jian and the game genuinely changes around you, not just in dialogue but in which battles exist and which characters will fight beside you. That is rare in a series this old, and it is the reason Origins stands out from its predecessors even when its amnesiac hero does not.

Dynasty Warriors Origins · game review · hack and slash · Koei Tecmo · Nintendo Switch 2 · Omega Force