''Samurai Warriors 5'', known in Japan as , is a

hack and slash Hack and slash, also known as hack and slay (H&S or HnS) or slash 'em up, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat with melee-based weapons (such as swords or blades). They may also feature projectile-based weapons as well (such as ...

game by

Koei Tecmo is a Japanese video game, amusement and anime holding company created in 2009 by the merger of Koei and Tecmo. Koei Tecmo Holdings owns several companies, the biggest one of those being its flagship game developer and publisher Koei Tecmo Games ...

, and a reboot of the ''Samurai Warriors'' series, part of the long-running ''

Warriors A warrior is a person specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracies, class, or caste. History Warriors seem to have be ...

'' series of hack and slash games published by

. Announced during a

Nintendo Direct Nintendo Direct is a series of online presentation or live shows produced by Nintendo, where information regarding the company's upcoming content or franchises is presented, such as information about games and consoles. The presentations began i ...

presentation on February 17, 2021, the game was stated to be a "fresh re-imagining" of the franchise, featuring an all-new storyline, revamped character designs, and a new visual presentation. It was released in Japan in June 2021 for the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 in ...

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

, with a worldwide release in July 2021 for those platforms and PC via

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

. A version for

Amazon Luna Amazon Luna is a cloud gaming platform developed and operated by Amazon. Luna was announced on September 24, 2020, with early access available to subscribers by invitation beginning on October 20, 2020. In its early access state, Amazon Luna ...

was made available on June 30, 2022.

Gameplay

Like previous games, the game is a

, in which the player faces against hundreds of enemy soldiers in a battlefield, with the objective usually being the defeat of an enemy commander. The game features a new Hyper Attack, which allows the player to traverse great distance while attacking enemies, and Ultimate Skill, augments that, depending on their type, can be used to continue combos, regenerate Musou Gauge, stun enemies, or deal a barrage of attacks. The game uses an art style resembling traditional

Japanese painting is one of the oldest and most highly refined of the Japanese visual arts, encompassing a wide variety of genres and styles. As with the history of Japanese arts in general, the long history of Japanese painting exhibits synthesis and competitio ...

Story

The game's scope of the

Sengoku period The was a period in History of Japan, Japanese history of near-constant civil war and social upheaval from 1467 to 1615. The Sengoku period was initiated by the Ōnin War in 1467 which collapsed the Feudalism, feudal system of Japan under the ...

is limited in contrast to previous games. ''Samurai Warriors 5'' focuses on events leading up to the

Honnō-ji Incident The was an attempt to assassinate Japanese daimyo Oda Nobunaga at the Honnō-ji temple in Kyoto on 21 June 1582, resulting in the suicide by '' seppuku'' of both Nobunaga and his son Oda Nobutada. The unprotected Nobunaga was ambushed by his ...

, with

Nobunaga Oda was a Japanese ''daimyō'' and one of the leading figures of the Sengoku period. He is regarded as the first "Great Unifier" of Japan. Nobunaga was head of the very powerful Oda clan, and launched a war against other ''daimyō'' to unify ...

and Mitsuhide Akechi being the prominent figures of the story.

Characters

The entire cast of characters has been vastly redesigned from previous incarnations (with the exception of Katsuyori Takeda, who retains his original design from '' Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada''). The amount of playable characters has also been cut when compared to the previous mainline game, ''

Samurai Warriors 4 ''Samurai Warriors 4'', known in Japan as , is a hack and slash game by Koei Tecmo, and sequel to ''Samurai Warriors 3''. Unlike past ''Samurai Warriors'' games, this one only has Japanese voice overs. A reboot of the series titled '' Samurai Warr ...

'' (which featured 55 playable characters), with only 37 playable characters being featured, 21 returning and 16 new (10 of the characters are Supporting Characters which means that they are not playable in Story Mode, and do not have unique Power Attacks, and a unique Ultimate Skill). ''* Denotes Supporting Characters who are not playable in Story Mode, and do not feature unique Power Attacks, and a unique Ultimate Skill''
''** Denotes characters with two playable versions consisting of Youth, and Mature counterparts''

Music

Unlike the electronic and traditional Japanese music collaborations in the previous ''Samurai Warriors'' games, ''Samurai Warriors 5'' largely replaces the electronic music in favour of rock and orchestral music, while keeping the traditional Japanese music entirely intact.

Reception

The game has received "generally favorable" reviews according to

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, becoming the highest rated entry in the series. ''

Famitsu formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...

'' gave all versions of the game scores of 9/9/8/9 for a total of 35/40. The game sold a total of 94,366 physical copies during its first week on sale in Japan (PS4: 55,675/Switch: 38,691) with the PS4 version being the second best-selling game of the week, and the Switch version being the third best-selling game of the week.

References

External links

Official North American site

Official European site
{{Musou series 2021 video games Crowd-combat fighting games Koei Tecmo games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games Video games about samurai Samurai Warriors Video games developed in Japan Video games set in feudal Japan Windows games Xbox One games Multiplayer and single-player video games