Dynasty Warriors has been a staple name for many people, encompassing a good portion of their lifetime. A pioneer of the Musou genre and introducing many to the Romance of The Three Kingdoms and with the new Dynasty Warriors Origins: Visions of Four Heroes DLC you can see what could have happened if your hero ventured down a different path.
The DLC has you choose between four different factions to support, but starts you with Zhang Jiao of the Yellow Turbans to step in at the last minute and instead of defeating him, you save him. These sort of situations are not unfamiliar to fans of the series with you normally being able to choose many officers all with different stories and loyalties but with your new Origins protagonist you are more experiencing the stories through the eyes of someone living in that moment.
The campaigns offer a whole new perspective on their heroes with all new endings as well as “strategy battles” which allow you to take on smaller battles before a larger force is faced and lets you control a small army of your own and assist allies with their fights with new abilities both on and off the battlefield. It was nice to see that the difficulty also scales to your level as I did find some of the levels in the main story becoming quite easy as I replayed some of the content.
It is important to stress that the majority of the content from Visions of Four Heroes happens in a dream-like state where it has no real bearing on the “real world” and also has a separate skill tree which is only usable in the levels featured. There is also a new hub world featuring training as well as a new shop and encounters with officers as you progress through the four stories. It’s actually quite nice to be able to walk around as much of the main story as you just bounce around the map going from location to location.
Some of the content however does travel over such as the two new weapons the rope dart and the blade bow, both longer reaching weapons which focus more on lighter attacks mixed with fast and skilled movements allowing for maximum reach as you batter down hundreds of foes. Another thing that also can be used in the main campaign is the many different cosmetic outfits available in this DLC of which there are surprisingly quite a lot with colours and uniforms for each faction as well as the three main factions in the main story.
If you’re looking for something a bit more strategy focused then take a look at our review of the Warhammer Dark Heresy Alpha which offers extremely precise controls over a squad of a different emperor’s finest members of the inquisition.
The campaigns are all wildly different in their own right throughout Visions of Four Heroes with each leader having drastically different ideals. If you’re a fan of the series you won’t be surprised by any of the events that happen story wise as they are very similar to some of the officers campaigns in previous games such as Lu Bu’s story having him fight through Xia Pi castle and prevent it from being flooded but still is a great experience in the Origins format.
If you’re looking for something to tide you over until the Dynasty Warriors 3 Remake and loved Origins this DLC is definitely for you and hopefully we can look forward to more down the line as there are many different factions and officers whose stories could still be explored.
You can find the Visions of Four Heroes DLC on Steam, Playstation and Xbox stores as well as the Switch 2 of which Dynasty Warriors Origins was just released alongside the DLC.
