Dynasty Warriors 9 Announced by Koei Tecmo With Teaser Trailer and Artwork; Will Be Open World

Giuseppe Nelva December 17, 2016 7:34 AM EST

During the a livestream from Tokyo, Koei Tecmo finally announced the new numbered chapter of the Dynasty Warriors (Shin Sangokumusou) franchise, Dynasty Warriors 9 (Shin Sangokumusou 8).

The title was introduced by Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan and Asia President Atsushi Morita, followed by Dynasty Warriors series Producer Akihiro Suzuki, who revealed after the announcement that the title will be open world.

On top of that, we also hear that the development team plans to change the gameplay dramatically, even if no solid details were provided on how besides the open world setting.

While no platform was announced, it’s safe to assume that the game will appear on PS4 due to the introduction by Morita-san, and the fact that Suzuki-san mentioned that the studio decided to challenge an open world game due to the fact that the current hardware specs allow this kind of gameplay environment. Of course, there is no reason to believe, at least for now, that it will be exclusive.

This announcement also solves the mystery of the game teased at Tokyo Game Show, where Koei Tecmo Producer Kou Shibusawa teased a game that fans were longing to see to be announced by the end of the year. If, like me, you were hoping it would be a new Ninja Gaiden, looks like we’re out of luck.

We also heard that Zhou Cang will appear in the game as a new playable character, and you can check him out here.

Incidentally, if the number in the newly introduced logo confuses you, English titles are ahead of the Japanese titles by one. The first Shin Sangokumusou was in fact localized as Dynasty Warriors 2, since the 1997 PlayStation title Sangokumusou had been previously localized as Dynasty Warriors, despite not actually belonging to the Shin Sangokumusou series. It didn’t even belong to the same genre, as it was a fighting game.

The discrepancy has accompanied the series since then, and there is no reason to believe that it’ll ever be amended.

The previous chapter of the series, Dynasty Warriors 8 (Shin Sangokumusou 7) hit the shelves in 2013, and was then re-released for PS4 and Windows in 2014, without counting the usual expansions.

You can check out a super-brief teaser trailer below, alongside new artwork created for the game that was showcased during the presentation.