Rather than just use the same tired menu system that most Empires games employ (including this year’s text-stuffed DW9 iteration), SW4 Empires mixes things up with a lavishly produced graphical interface set within the confines of a cute cutaway diorama castle. While the vast majority of the graphical and combat content come directly from Samurai Warriors 4, it’s the presentation layer on top that makes this worth going back to now. I don’t know that Sony paid for any kind of exclusivity at the time, so this is probably just down to Koei’s weird habit of releasing things in whatever manner they choose. The game released in 2016 on the PS3(!), Vita(!!), and PS4, with no Xbox or PC releases to speak of. In fact, revisiting it now on a modern console, it’s as vibrant and fresh as anything else in the series, and probably should have been the model for more of their games going forward. There’s nothing about the game itself that suggests that the series was about to go on hiatus. Samurai Warriors 4 Empires was the last game in this spin-off lineage before Koei threw it in a closet for six long years. Not really the stuff of modern mainstream gaming excitement, maybe, but something I really enjoy. These take the core button mashing action of the million billion Warriors games and pair it with a layer of hardcore strategy driven mostly by menus. The Empires brand used to show its face a lot more often, with a new game all but guaranteed for each installment in the main series. These days, the licensed titles in the series tend to do much better than the in-house original IP stuff, so it’s no wonder really that the tactical side of the series got shelved for six years. I enjoyed the game enough that I bought and played several copies, and I’m re-evaluating it right now on the PS5.ĭW9: Empires was the return of Koei’s long-dormant spin off branch of their long-running Warriors/Musou action franchise. The game’s Japanese release was more smartly timed at the end of 2021, where it was a modest hit. Earlier this year, Koei Tecmo and Omega Force launched Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires worldwide to little fanfare, dropping it out right in the middle of other big games like Elden Ring and Horizon Forbidden West.
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