Dynasty Warriors Next

Dynasty Warriors Next is split into several scenarios where all stages are chosen from a map of China.^[3] The territories can be invaded in order to gain influence and gold for each owned region.^[3] The earned gold can be spent on stratagems, which are special boosts represented by the officers of a player's faction.^[4] They come with different bonuses: increasing attack and defense, boosting the aggression of the enemy's army, making the bases easier to seize, and others.^[3] The army can be equipped with items and weapons that are found on the battlefield, like buffs, enhancements or horses.^[5]

Once the battle starts, the map gets split between allied and enemy bases.^[3] Each of them have a special purpose, and benefit the side which controls it. A supply will increase the power of all owned bases, and an armory can temporarily double the troops' attack.^[3] The lairs can spawn animal reinforcements in bears, tigers or wolves, while the magical bases link themselves to other bases, making them invulnerable.^[3] The bases can be captured by killing everything that is inside, until the counter drops to zero.^[5] At any point, an unskippable one-on-one duel may initiate.^[5] Similar to Infinity Blade, the player can block the attacks while tapping the flashing points to break their resistance, and finish them off.^[4]

There are several game modes available. Campaign contains three story acts and is loosely based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, with the purpose of introducing the basic concepts.^[5] It serves as a series of battles, where the rival kingdoms are vying for control of the land.^[4] The player usually gets to make a choice of which officer to take in, except for key conflicts where it's all restricted.^[4] In the Conquest mode, the main goal of taking over territories across China remains the same, only that it also allows the players to create their own army and officers.^[5] Edit Mode is used for creating or editing characters.^[5] The customization materials are unlocked by completing the Campaign parts, and every created character can be brought in Conquest afterwards.^[5] Conquest has an online version, where the game will collect data from other players to populate the battlefield.^[5] The player will then face off against other Edit Mode creations, in addition to the regular cast.^[5]

The game makes use of touch and gyroscope Vita controls: tilting for aiming Musou attacks or marking enemies' weak points, and touchscreen for blocking and deflecting projectiles.^[4]

Dynasty Warriors Next was met with average to mixed reception upon release; GameRankings gave it a score of 68.31%,^[6] while Metacritic gave it 67 out of 100.^[7] The game sold 29,181 copies within its first week of release in Japan.^[17]