It’s a pretty good time to even tangentially be related to a game like Elden Ring. Following its massive acclaim and success in 2022, many developers and publishers will no doubt be looking to replicate its special sauce and capture an audience expectant for more. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty not only looks like it could whet the appetite of Souls aficionados, but it brings more than enough of its own ideas to promise plenty for its full release this March.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty adapts a well-trodden source material in video games: China’s Three Kingdoms. While it’s been done before (perhaps to death) by Dynasty Warriors, the dark fantasy angle carried over from Team Ninja’s own Nioh series helps it stand out, as you’ll be battling demons and zombies amidst all the human carnage, too. Think Onimusha (odd voice acting and all) blended with Sekiro and a dash of Monster Hunter and you have the general idea.
Wo Long starts off with perhaps one of the best character creators around, particularly impressive when you consider that you will be seeing yourself in plentiful cutscenes and not looking out of place. With almost every part of the face customisable and even things like the pitch of your voice being adjustable, this is one action RPG where your created character won’t look they’ve been teleported from another dimension. Then again, if you want that look, you’re able to — the ability to create a freak factory is also still very much within your hands here.
Fallen Dynasty starts off very unlike pretty much any game of its ilk: with a friend in tow. Souls-like/dark fantasy action RPGs almost always make you feel completely, terrifyingly alone unless you summon someone, but the friendly NPCs here can border on the clingy in terms of just how close they stick to you and how much they want to help out. They’re meant to replace having a human co-op partner for those who prefer to play solo, but honestly who wouldn’t want to team up with a legendary Three Kingdoms character instead? The fact that you can deepen your bonds with them is also a nice little detail, though it’s hard to figure out the depths of such a mechanic in a limited preview.
Games like Wo Long are nothing without tight, satisfying combat to keep you playing for dozens of hours, and Team Ninja certainly seemed to have delivered the goods. While you can easily bash your way through many of the game’s grunts, deflecting is really what makes things fun, a super flashy, super high risk/reward mechanic that many will doubt love mastering. Pressing B/circle at just the right moment will deflect most attacks and leave enemies open to your attacks, while countering a critical strike will more often than not break their spirit and leave them vulnerable to a Fatal Strike, basically an absurd, anime-esque attack that you’d normally see in a character action game. This makes Wo Long a game of aggressive defense where fights end quickly and definitively, though there’s a lot of practising to be done and a lot of deaths to endure before you can really feel confident.
The most unique mechanic that Wo Long has to offer, though, at least from a short preview, is Morale. Essentially, the more enemies you face, the more your Morale will increase and the stronger you become. However, if you lose to an enemy, their Morale will increase and yours will decrease, effectively making them even tougher until you defeat them. This basically makes it so that you should be exploring every nook of a level to take on as many enemies you can, while also being aware that death will set you back. It adds tension, but it doesn’t feel massively punishing in the way that, say, getting cursed in the original Dark Souls did.
That’s the overall sense I get from Wo Long: it’s tough, but far more forgiving and accessible than basically any Team Ninja game before it, at least in the early goings. Yes, it’s masochistic, but the ability to depend on AI partners, respawn at plentiful Battle Flags (read: campfires), and lean on what looks to be pretty easy integration of co-op with other players makes it a game that doesn’t seem to just outright hate you playing it (see: Nioh 2).
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is already shaping up to be one of the first truly great action RPGs of 2023, as well as something that will likely scratch an itch for many. I really can’t wait to play more of it.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty releases on March 3rd, 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X & S. A Steam key was provided by PR for the purposes of this preview.
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