If there’s one thing the Dynasty Warriors series is known for, it’s watching one person battle literally thousands of soldiers and somehow come out the victor. But if there’s a second thing the series is known for, it’s the insane amount of challenges to overcome in order to achieve 100-percent completion. Musou fans have reported spending hundreds of hours on their favorite Dynasty Warriors games, and even How Long To Beat records the Zelda crossover Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition as needing 361 hours to fully complete. While I can’t yet confirm or deny whether Dynasty Warriors: Origins has that much content (I would love to have 300 spare hours to find out), I can say that Omega Force’s latest title almost certainly won’t leave you wanting for stuff to fight.
My first playthrough took a little over 40 hours to complete. I played on the Hero (hard) difficulty and sought out every bond event and optional battle along the way, so theoretically you could reach the ending in less time than that. That’s already a sizable campaign, but there’s a lot to dig your teeth into after you see the credits roll too. If you’d like to know what awaits you in the postgame and beyond, here’re all the juicy details you have to look forward to.
The information below will avoid specific story spoilers, but if you want to be completely surprised by Dynasty Warriors: Origins, only check the sections that you’re comfortable reading for yourself.
How many chapters are in Dynasty Warriors: Origins?
Dynasty Warriors: Origins takes place across five chapters. There’s technically a short prologue chapter too, but it’s only a single tutorial battle to get your feet wet with the combat. Every chapter is roughly equal in terms of length, though you may wind up spending the most time in Chapter Three for reasons I’ll explain below.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins has three branching story paths
Starting in chapter three, the main cast of Dynasty Warriors: Origins will split into three distinct factions. This is standard Romance of the Three Kingdoms stuff, so that part shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. From here, you can engage with the three factions on a freelance basis like you’re someone who writes online professionally. But unlike someone who writes online professionally, one of your employers will eventually want to hire you full time. This will lock you into a unique story path for the remainder of Chapter Three, and that will persist into chapters four and five.
Several unique stages are locked behind each branching story path. Following my first playthrough, my stats indicated that I had only completed 50% of the missions in the game. In other words, there’s a healthy amount of replay value here, which brings me to my final point.
Caption: A screenshot of Dynasty Warriors: Origins. The main character is holding what appears to be a polearm as rain falls upon him.
What’s the postgame like in Dynasty Warriors: Origins?
True to series tradition, there’s a lot of game to play after you reach the first ending. You’ll surely want to see how those other story paths play out, and Dynasty Warriors: Origins gives you great tools to do just that. Here’s everything you’ll unlock once you start your postgame file.
- You’ll gain the ability to freely replay any battle in the game, including optional missions you might have seen and initially missed. Additionally, you can restart the game from the beginning of any chapter and before any battle that leads to a new story branch depending on how you complete it. Yes, there are branching paths in the branching paths!
- Your level cap will get a permanent increase, adding extra levels to each weapon for you to gain.
- An extra weapon type can be found in the postgame as well, which is so insanely strong that it’s worth the insane amount of cash it costs in the shop. I won’t reveal exactly what it is, but it’s a very fun piece of fan service.
- On top of the new weapon type, a stronger grade of weapons enters the pool too. You can purchase these outright, or you can find them in basic story missions.
- Also, you can upgrade your weapons! This should be familiar to Warriors fans, but you can use spare weapons to both pass on useful traits or bestow raw power upgrades to your favorite armament. This does cost money though, so make sure you don’t blow through your reserves right off the bat.
- Finally, an all new difficulty level is unlocked in the postgame. This changes fundamental rules of the game to skew things in your foes’ favor, but your rewards after each battle will dramatically increase. Also, you’ll find new optional challenges in several battles on this difficulty that will grant powerful new equipment and items upon completion. Do note that this difficulty is really intended for high level players, to the point that you’ll be dramatically underleveled for it even after a full playthrough. You’ll likely need to level up by playing through the other story paths before you challenge the game on this difficulty.
Dynasty Warriors: Origins could very well require a triple digit number of hours before you accomplish everything it has to offer. Do keep in mind that Dynasty Warriors games have a reputation for re-releases and/or DLC, so take that into consideration in case that affects your decision to purchase this one. But that aside, if we’re judging solely on how long a game can divert your attention away from doing your dishes, Dynasty Warriors: Origins is a solid package as-is.
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