Warriors Orochi 4 is a game about gods behaving badly and 170 people trying to stop them. Koei Tecmo and Omega Force built the fifth and final entry in the crossover series around Greek and Norse mythology, then handed the whole mess to a three-person squad drawn from Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors. It works more often than it should.
Trailer, via KOEI TECMO AMERICA.
Zeus Drags the Heroes Back
The premise picks up after Warriors Orochi 3. The heroes of the Three Kingdoms and Sengoku periods have returned home and forgotten the dimensional world entirely. Zeus, king of Olympus, decides to drag them back for reasons he keeps to himself.
His son Perseus steals eight Ouroboros bracelets — made from Medusa’s hair, each holding godly power — and tries to reach the mortals. The attempt scatters them across the world instead. The heroes split into four factions, each anchored by a bracelet wielder.
Perseus leads one faction with Naotora Ii, Guan Yinping and Yukimura Sanada, who carry the powers of Aphrodite, Freya and Tyr. Nuwa leads a second with Nobunaga Oda wielding Izanagi’s power. Ares and Athena command a third with Zhao Yun, Mitsunari Ishida and Cao Pi. Da Ji and Lu Bu round out the fourth, with Lu Bu holding Thor’s power.
The twist lands where it should: Perseus is Loki in disguise, a servant of Odin working to destabilize the world so Odin can summon the God of Destruction.
Six New Gods Join the Roster
Warriors Orochi 4 ships with 170 playable characters. Every fighter from Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate returns except the collaboration guests. The roster pulls its looks from Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires and Samurai Warriors 4-II.
Six original characters join the fight:
- Zeus (Power), voiced by Takashi Matsuyama, fights with a scepter called Keraunos
- Athena (Technique), voiced by Suzuko Mimori, carries the mechanical shield Aegis
- Loki (Technique), voiced by Hiro Shimono, wields the tree spear Mistilteinn
- Ares (Speed), voiced by Makoto Furukawa, uses Typhon spears
- Odin (Power) carries Gungnir
Loki spends the whole game disguised as Perseus, which means every piece of promotional material referred to him as Perseus. That is a genuinely good trick to play on your own marketing.
Sacred Treasures Replace Type Actions
The class system returns with Power, Speed and Technique. The Wonder type from Warriors Orochi 3 is gone. In its place: Sacred Treasures and magic, mapped to holding the right shoulder button and pressing a normal, charge or musou attack.
The tradeoffs are real. Dynasty Warriors characters lose their second musou attack but keep the aerial one. Samurai Warriors characters lose special attacks but keep hyper attacks. Mounting a horse stays, activated the same way with the jump button.
The Awakening mechanic from Dynasty Warriors 8 and the Musou Gokui from Samurai Warriors 4 are now one system. It only triggers from a rare in-game powerup, and only one team member can use it at a time. On Switch with a single Joy-Con, you press SL and SR together because the left stick handles character switching.
Four Factions Beat One Army
The faction structure gives the roster room to breathe. Four groups with distinct leaders and distinct motivations beats one undifferentiated army, and the Perseus reveal gives the plot an actual spine instead of a premise.
The magic system is the more interesting bet. Stripping type actions to add Sacred Treasures costs each character something specific, which is a harder choice than simply stacking new abilities on top. Whether the trade feels even depends on which Warriors game you came from.
The weak point is the roster’s dependence on old material. Six new gods against the returning cast is a thin ratio for a final installment, and the game leans on Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires and Samurai Warriors 4-II designs rather than reworking them.
Release Dates and Platform Lineup
- Release: September 27, 2018 in Japan; October 2018 in North America and Europe
- Platforms: PlayStation 4, PC, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
- Ultimate version: December 19, 2019 in Japan; February 14, 2020 in North America and Europe
- Playable characters: 170
- New original characters: 6
- Developer: Koei Tecmo and Omega Force
- Critic aggregate: 7.8/10 across 5 outlets
Warriors Orochi 4 closes the series by finally giving it a villain worth the crossover. Odin’s plan and Loki’s long con hold the four factions together better than any previous entry managed, and the Sacred Treasures system asks players to relearn characters they thought they knew. The thin batch of newcomers keeps it from being a clean sendoff, but as a last statement from a series built on mashups, it lands.
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