The wait was long, but DW9E is finally here
Already available in Japan, this new title is scheduled to launch everywhere else on February 15, after an original 2021 debut pushed back to 2022 for obvious reasons. If you’ve played Dynasty Warriors 9 before, there’s no doubt you’ll feel at home when launching the new Empires. However, there are several big changes that Koei hopes would allow the game to better match everybody’s expectations. And the first of them is the open-world format that has been replaced by a rather semi-open approach that still allows players to do some exploration but is based on a classic stage format which somehow makes more sense. The open-world side of the game still exists, but in many ways, this is where Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires disappoints. I hate to start this review with a bad thing, but the open world is large enough to get you bored unless you just want to do some exploration specifically to waste time. There’s not much to find, and you’ll almost certainly miss the thrilling quests, so for many fans out there, the open world is a place where you can basically do nothing. Let’s talk a little bit about the graphics. I tried the PlayStation 5 version of the game, and honestly, I would have expected a smoother performance from one end to another. The cinematics leave a lot to be desired, and the attention to detail is minimal, to say the least. There are occasional slowdowns likely caused by the rendering engine, though these don’t happen at all during the gameplay.
