I’m not ashamed to admit I’m a big fan of Dynasty Warriors. Every time Koei Tecmo and Omega Force team up, I can’t help but jump back into the Warriors universe to see how the 1 vs. 100 gameplay has innovated. For February, a surprising roguelike is on the menu featuring instantly recognizable characters from both Dynasty and Samurai Warriors rosters. Warriors: Abyss was surprisingly announced and released this week, and it drags fan-favourite heroes to the depths of hell to do what they do best: commit murder in the thousands. Warriors: Abyss brings a simple, fun Warriors experience to the roguelike genre, but the experience isn’t as fleshed out as it initially appears.
First things first, if you’re confused as to why dozens of the Warriors franchise’s greatest heroes find themselves in Hell, you’re not alone. Warriors: Abyss leaves any semblance of a working story for the imagination, as this time, the story is there as a convenient reason to commit demon genocide. The title’s weakest point is the story by far, which isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker.
But due to the lack of care given the colourful cast of characters, player’s emotions towards introductions is relegated only to the player’s experience playing the other Warriors franchise titles before Abyss. One of the strongest features of the Warriors franchise is the focus on character interaction and personality, and with this Warriors: Abyss misses this mark.
“Warriors: Abyss drags fan-favourite heroes to the depths of hell to do what they do best: commit murder in the thousands.”
The reason Warriors: Abyss is set in hell is simply because the ruler of the underworld —a ruler who could pass as Laharl from Disgaea’s lost half-brother— Enma, has summoned the souls of the greatest warriors of the realm to fight the evil enigmatic Gouma in the deepest circle of Hell (which is only four this time, sorry Dante). If fans are playing Warriors: Abyss for the story, they’re playing the wrong game, and thankfully there’s more beneath the surface.
First impressions matter, and Warriors: Abyss is the equivalent of showing up late to a job interview. Many of the elements in the menu systems of Warriors: Abyss are very linear and there aren’t any extra modes to choose from. You can start a run and select your hero, check the Hall of Heroes where experience can be used to buy more characters, and that’s the entire title menu. You can also check statistics and in-game achievement progress. The UI deployed by Omega Force is rough to look at and features out-of-place boxes that dampen the player’s view of the rest of the screen.
More than once, I met grammar issues with menu options which was downright confusing. When selecting a character for a run through Hell, the confirmation pop-up reads “Would you like to challenge Cao Cao?” which gives the impression you will be fighting him instead of playing as the Wei ruler. There are no character descriptions or neat backstory glossaries included in Abyss like those present in the Dynasty Warriors Legends and Empires spin-offs, and these omissions water down the entire experience.
After first diving into a run of Warriors: Abyss it’s time to address the elephant in the room. Warriors: Abyss looks a lot like Hades and the point of view shows its obvious inspiration. Warriors: Abyss deploys a similar run progression system to Hades as well, allowing the player to create bonds with other officers after every wave of enemies. This is a much less personal experience than the familial troubles Olympians have with Zagreus in Hades, as its bond in name and gameplay effects only.
While playing Guan Yu, he meshes incredibly well with his sworn brothers Liu Bei and Zhang Fei, and when you recruit all three passive buffs reward the player for their Dynasty Warriors knowledge. The same goes for the Samurai Warriors heroes. Deploying Nobunaga Oda with Mitsuhide Akechi will also grant boons considering they’re from the same title. This reminds me of the team-up mechanic in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, and it works well in practice.
Warriors: Abyss character models are also steeped in nostalgia. Wei General, Xiahou Dun uses his Podao from Dynasty Warriors 9 instead of when the character swapped to a heavy mace in Dynasty Warriors 6, and Zhang Jiao adopts his religious fanatical appearance from those past entries as well, dropping the new DYNASTY WARRIORS: ORIGINS humanized approach. These are awesome decisions and bring long-time fans back to the battlefield as they remember it. Most characters have the same move set from previous entries, and delivering Lu Bu’s Musou equivalent to a Dragon Ball Kamehameha feels impactful and disrupts the battlefield as remembered.
“At first glance, Warriors: Abyss looks and feels like Hades with Musou combat, but its execution lacks the same level of polish and depth.”
Gameplay in Warriors: Abyss takes basic movements from the Warriors franchise and injects them into gameplay that oozes Musou Zagreus. In the beginning segments of Abyss, the game is at its best. It plays and feels weighty like a Musou title, you can deliver massive special attacks and combos feel important to nail at the right time. After progressing through a few phases, it’s made apparent this is not your father’s Warriors.
After each phase the player is given the choice to one of three heroes to continue forth. You can’t use the recruited characters traditionally, but their presence grants the players buffs. Similar to the special buff between Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, and Liu Bei, each character can bless your chosen warrior with stat boosts. When recruiting the Tiger General Zhao Yun, he laces the chosen warrior’s attacks with lightning, and Dian Wei bestows flame on your weapons. Stacking proper buffs with one another lets the chosen warrior become a weapon of mass destruction which a Warriors franchise hallmark.
Combat is the strongest feature in Warriors: Abyss. You can chip away health points with basic attacks, charge attacks and special attacks like in other Musou titles, but in Warriors: Abyss, players can summon their recruits with charge attacks for devastating effects. Using the ice element specialist, Xiahou Yuan unleashes a raining flurry of ice arrows on the battlefield, and Zhang Fei unleashes a green tornado to decimate demon hordes. These summon attacks have a cooldown period so you aren’t allowed to abuse them.
Unless you build your character that way! Warriors: Abyss allows fans to build their force to do battle against Gouma however they see fit, and spamming summon attacks is a method I toyed with while trying to bring down the big baddie. There are many, MANY builds to try in Abyss, and at first, it appears the options are endless.
Warriors: Abyss is at its best when you’re up against a strong wave of enemies and adrenaline is the only thing pushing you forward. In this regard, I’d relate the later Abyss game gameplay to Vampire Survivors. It gets incredibly chaotic, and it becomes difficult to know exactly what’s happening when seven heroes are performing special attacks all over the screen. The colour saturation and arcade feel of a damage counter slowly ringing up thousands of damage is good fun and denotes how much chaos your team caused. This is all by design, and it is a blast when your group of comrades are slaughtering hundreds of enemies on screen at once.
The mechanics driving Abyss are fun in action. You can toss around hundreds of cannon fodder enemies, and it’s a sight to behold waves of enemies spill onto stage floors after unleashing the special powers of your recruited heroes at once (called an Assembly Attack). The real fun begins when I use my own special Musou attack in tandem.
“Those in search of a great roguelike are better off revisiting the House of Hades rather than descending into this version of Hell.”
This activates the Ultimate Musou ability and it nukes everything on the screen. Warriors: Abyss is at its best when it’s channeling the best part of Warriors, the addictive power fantasy. Taking down a difficult boss fight after struggling against it for many runs is rewarding, and gave me the feeling of “I did it!” when taking down a particularly hard reaper-looking boss. It’s always a good time to reck hordes of enemies with a team of war gods, or as the Koei Tecmo would like to call it, a weekend.
The character build system appears fun and varied at first when attempting to make a build that works, but Warriors: Abyss has a problem. There is a function to ‘optimize’ your hero build before jumping into the next phase between levels with the help of Enma. This is somehow always better optimized than my well-thought-out team. I can pour all stats into Vigor and the Ice Element which causes great frozen fun on the Hell battlefield, but promoted stat salad always prevails in Warriors: Abyss.
On numerous occasions, it’s a far better result to pick the higher number rather than strengthen the character build you’re going for, which tears away the entire ethos behind Abyss. A higher output will always beat a well-thought-out build, so it tears down any actual feeling of progression the player has. There are many ways to outfit your six-man team, and it’s quite addicting to try new builds on new runs. But, just choosing the better option because the number is ‘this much higher’ is thoughtless. Due to this, the working systems in Warriors: Abyss are more of a façade of RPG elements rather than actual important decision-making.
On the surface level, Warriors: Abyss is a fun time. Bringing Dynasty/Samurai Warriors gameplay to the roguelike genre seems like a match made in heaven, and when first starting out gameplay feels like greeting an old friend at a tavern to catch up. Attack combos are smooth, and the staggering 100-deep character roster assures at least one of a fans’ favourite characters has made the cut. When the title becomes more like Vampire Survivors, Abyss can become a sweaty crucible of testing reflexes. Also, making Lu Bu above and beyond the strongest character is lore-accurate, and a nice touch by Koei Tecmo to translate the fanbase over from the mainline series.
However, shallow feeling progression, abhorrent UI, muddily textured levels, confusing menu translations and baffling structure keep this roguelike in the Abyss. While Warriors: Abyss does show flashes of brilliance on occasion, it overall gives the feeling that this may have been a live service title that was reformed into a standalone release due to the UI system and lack of care on overall development. These many shortcomings hold Abyss back from being something special. Warriors: Abyss is a safe recommendation to any fan of Musou games (especially those on a budget), but those in search of a good roguelike are better off jumping back into The House of Hades instead of this version of Hell.
