At the G-STAR 2025 Game Conference, Koei Tecmo Game Company held a special lecture with the theme of "Restarting Back to the Origin - Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Series".The company's senior producer and game designer Zhuang Zhiyan took the stage and elaborated on the development concept and production process of "Dynasty Warriors: Origins", which will be released in January 2025.

Zhuang Zhiyan first reviewed the development history of the series."Dynasty Warriors 7" released in 2013 tried to return to the origin and received good response, but the open world transformation of "Dynasty Warriors 8" in 2018 caused controversy.Faced with the dilemma of the series' continued development, Zhuang Zhiyan decided to suspend the original ninth-generation project and rethink the "core value of the Wushuang series."

He defined the core of the series as the following four elements:

· Tactical action system

·The exhilarating feeling of riding a thousand horses with one rider

·Presence of the battlefield

·The charm of the Three Kingdoms itself (the story and the presence of the hero)

Zhuang Zhiyan emphasized: "Only when these four points are in place can one become truly unparalleled."

Regarding the development of the sequel, Zhuang Zhiyan pointed out that it faces a dual task: it must not only inherit the core charm of the series, but also attract new users.He specifically reminded: “Players’ loud opinions may not always be correct,” and developers need to distinguish between real needs and superficial appeals.

To this end, the team established "absolute development principles" - "overwhelming sense of legion" and "overwhelming sense of exhilaration".Zhuang Zhiyan revealed that he consolidates this concept through continuous "brain simulation play" and has maintained this habit since "Dynasty Warriors 2".

In terms of game design, the team focused on strengthening the "emotionally shocking battlefield" experience.By analyzing players’ past highlight moments, they found that the feeling of “advancing the front line with friendly forces” was the most critical.Zhuang Zhiyan said: "There is no other action game that can fight side by side with such a large number of friendly forces. This is the unique advantage of Dynasty Warriors."

To this end, the team significantly increased the number of soldiers and redesigned the appearance and behavior of enemy soldiers to make them more threatening.This change not only enhances the enemy's sense of oppression, but also unexpectedly makes friendly forces appear more reliable.

The game also adopts a three-act narrative structure, and comprehensively enhances the player's emotional experience through sophisticated lens use, lighting design, controller vibration and other functions.Zhuang Zhiyan emphasized: "All these designs are to achieve 'cathartic release due to the players' efforts.'"

As part of the series' 25th anniversary planning, the large-scale DLC "Dynasty Warriors: Origins" "Fantasy Four Heroes" will be released on January 22, 2026, and the Switch 2 version of the game will also be released simultaneously on the same day.