The December 2016-announced Dynasty Warriors 9 is a PlayStation 4 title, the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu reveals.

The first open-world game in the Dynasty Warrior series, Dynasty Warriors 9 will of course feature actions that let players toss around large armies, as well as various other actions such as shooting at enemies from a distance and invading castles with a grappling hook. The mechanisms behind attack actions are being completely changed, and new characters and various “innovations” are also being added. One of the new warlords being added is Cheng Pu, whose weapon is a dual spear.

A release date for Dynasty Warriors 9 has yet to be announced.

Thanks, Famitsu.

Update 7:25 a.m.: New information has leaked from Weekly Famitsu.

The latest entry in the Dynasty Warriors series uses an open-world format. The continent of China of the Three Kingdoms period is represented by a single, vast map.

By making the game open-world, capture methods are also powered up. Since you can roam the map freely, you can even circumvent castles and attack from high places. There is also an extreme variety of attack methods that tests the power of the player’s conception. Can you infiltrate the castle without the enemy noticing and take out your target?

Long distance attacks using bows will return. Any character can use a bow to attack.

Time and weather change in real-time. The enemy’s field of vision is poor during the night or when it’s raining, making it harder to be discovered.

Here’s an overview of the game flow: among the missions that appear all over the map, there are also “main missions.” By clearing main missions, history will greatly advance forward, but these missions have a high degree of difficulty. By clearing missions associated with main missions, you can lower the degree of difficulty.

“State Combo” is a new system that lets players react in different ways depending on the situation. The combo starts with a trigger attack, follows up with a flow of consecutive attacks that change based on the state of the enemy, and ends with a strong finish attack.

“Interactive Actions” are actions that change depending on the surrounding terrain and objects. You can use grappling hooks to climb up high mountains and walls. Or you can unleash attacks that use certain things on the spot.

Development is currently 40 percent complete.

Thanks, Hachima Kikou.

Update 8:35 a.m.: Here are some tidbits from Weekly Famitsu’s interview with producer Akihiro Suzuki and director Atsushi Miyauchi.

The main flow of the game will follow the history of the Records of the Three Kingdoms, just like previous games.

Battles aren’t broken up into stages, but various battles that correspond to the era will occur all over the land, which you will participate in.

For example, if we’re talking about the Yellow Turban Rebellion, you can fight with the Yellow Turbans in a place where Zhang Jiao can be found. If you go to the south-east, you can hear gossip of Zhang Jiao and company. When you defeat Zhang Jiao, history will progress to the Campaign Against Dong Zhuo era, and whatever is occurring on the map at that time will change completely to match the new period.

Stories are being planned for each warlord, but since there are no branches that change history, the overall flow is the same.

The era and period that each warlord plays a role in are different. If you start with Zhao Yun, you can play the period in which he was active, but if you choose Wang Yuanji, you’ll play in an era set after the life of Zhao Yun.

The ability to switch between warlords is under consideration. Since the era changes so significantly depending on the characters you switch between, we would need to explain the background of the period. We’re currently looking for a solution.

It takes about five minutes to swim across the Yangtze River and Yellow River, since it’s a wide place. There are also ports that you can move to instantly.

Major cities such as Luoyang are smaller than they are in reality, but since one side is about one kilometer, it is an experience of considerable scale.

There are more than 10 cities. General-purpose cities and villages are also being prepared.

Movement is mainly by horse. Fast travel, which will allow you to instantly travel to places you have already visited, is also being prepared.

Urban areas will have buying and selling elements.

The warlords’ costumes are being updated. This time, we’re cutting back on the flashiness and aiming for something that more realistically matches that period.

There are various missions such as hunting wild animals with a bow and battles against different races with dedicated visuals.

Development seems to still have some way to go. I don’t think it will be released at least until it’s cold out.

Thanks, Hachima Kikou.