During the stage panel today at ACGHK 2018, producer Masaki Furusawa showed off more of the new Sacred Treasures system in Warriors Orochi 4, and also hinted at some sort of online 3v3 mode as part of the online multiplayer. The online multiplayer is also a first for the entire Warriors franchise.
Firstly, Furusawa went over what’s unique about this entry:
- Warriors Orochi 4 brings a more supernatural element into the story than before, with the Sacred Treasures system and characters like Zeus and Athena.
- There are 170 characters playable in total. While only five are new characters to this entry, 29 of them are characters who haven’t been playable in the Orochi subseries.
- Warriors Orochi 4 has Online Mode (not just online story co-op), and Online Mode-specific content in a first for the entire Musou series. More will be shared regarding this later on. Furusawa later states that because there is an online 3v3 mode in the game, online content will support up to six players at once, despite the game box saying ‘For 1-2 players’.
- Of course, online and offline (splitscreen) co-op gameplay will be making a return in this game.
Next, Furusawa showed off some gameplay:
One of the characters used was Athena, the new character announced earlier this month. Athena uses her sword and shield (Aegis), and her shield can fire off beams as well. One of these beams will petrify any enemies hit with it, and they will shatter with any hit afterwards.
As for Sacred Treasures, Divine Arts from these Treasures can be used to draw in enemies, or shoot from afar, or attack in an AoE range. Divine Arts can also be charged with R2 + Triangle when the outer ring on the circular gauge is filled up. Each character works differently with each charged Divine Art. Summoning a horse in this game also counts as a Divine Art.
The inner circle of the fills up as you rack up combo numbers, and when it’s full, players can press L2 + R2 to unleash a Combination Divine Art. After a Combination Divine Art, the player character enters a boosted state with higher damage and higher speed. This might seem overpowered, but players lose combo numbers if they take damage, so it will take skill to charge it up quickly.
One of the new Sacred Treasures shown off was Gullinbursti, a boar. Furthermore, each character has their own personal Divine Art, when using a particular Sacred Weapon. For example, Hattori Hanzo will split into copies to fire Artemis’ Bow, while Fa Zheng pretends to be a matador with Gullinbursti.
One tip Furusawa gave for the upcoming game was to step away from the action a bit if you want to use a charged Divine Art, or prepare it in advance before reaching the crowd of enemies.
Finally, Furusawa ended things off by stating to the crowd that the game is nearly reached its release date, and things are wrapping up in development. He even has to fly back to Japan the same night in order to continue working on it. The Orochi series has been on hiatus for five years, and Furusawa believes that this will be great game to make that gap worth it.
Warriors Orochi 4 releases in Japan on September 27, 2018 for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. The game releases in North America on October 16, 2018 for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam worldwide.
