Dynasty Warriors Origins marks the grand return of the legendary action game series, and it’s already proving to be a winner. It’s been almost seven years since Dynasty Warriors 9, and in that time we’ve seen a handful of other spin-offs including Samurai Warriors 5, Persona 5 Strikers, and One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4. But now it’s finally time to return to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms to do battle with iconic characters such as Cao Cao and Lu Bu, and things are off to a fantastic start for Koei Tecmo and Omega Force.
Our Dynasty Warriors Origins review finds a lot to love here, praising the joyful combat, consistent performance, and sheer amount of stuff to do. “Fans of the series will love this, I feel,” Paul writes of the long-anticipated returning hack-and-slash game, “and for those who haven’t experienced this very specific brand of crowd combat before, Dynasty Warriors Origins is the best place to start.” User reviews are similarly glowing – it’s still early days yet, but so far 94% of the more than 3,000 Steam reviews recommend the game.
The Steam player count tells an even more impressive story. Just one day after launch, Dynasty Warriors Origins has crested at a concurrent active player peak of 63,799. That’s a huge leap over even the numbers the action RPG’s free demo saw at launch, which itself was the highest the traditionally console-first series had ever reached on Steam.
If you’ve read this far but you’re still wondering exactly what the deal with Dynasty Warriors Origins is, let me give you a quick rundown. Like the rest of the series, it focuses on impressively grand-scale battles across the tales of famed Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel. It’s a blend of the historical and the fictional, and Origins aims to tackle its narrative a little more thoroughly than the broad-strokes approach of past games.
Rather than taking control of one of its multitude of named characters, you instead take on the role of an unknown, original protagonist. Your weapon choice determines your moveset, with each boasting various strengths and weaknesses. Each conflict is a blend of splattering your way through hundreds of generic soldiers to keep the battlefield under your control, and much more challenging, cinematic showdowns against officers and the named roster of antagonists.
For me, Dynasty Warriors clicked when a friend and I poured hours into its fourth installment, realizing that while carving through the masses was simple but satisfying, the difficulty could pretty dramatically ramp up in harder fights and more late-game battles. Paul notes that Origins follows this trend well: “Most of your opponents are mere cannon fodder, so when you come up against someone (almost) equal to yourself, it hits that much harder, and so do they.”
Dynasty Warriors Origins is out now on Steam, priced at $69.99 / £64.99 for the base game or $89.99 / £79.99 for the digital deluxe edition. There’s also a free demo you can try. Whether you’re just curious to download that or want to pick up the full game, you certainly won’t be alone.
If that’s still not enough to satiate your lust for combat, try another of the best action games on PC, or see what the best soulslikes are in 2025 instead.
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