Ranking Every Dynasty Warriors Game Worst To Best

First released in 2007, Dynasty Warriors 6 was intended to be a massive overhaul of the franchise, built from the ground up with a new combat system, new features, and new character designs, all designed to utilize the power of the new generations of consoles, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. How did it go so wrong?

Released to great fanfare that swiftly turned to disappointment, Dynasty Warriors 6 was a game that looked bad and played even worse. Riddled with bugs and glitches that would frustrate even the most forgiving gamer, it offered little to longtime fans of the series. Colors and textures were washed out, muddy browns and greys that did little to convey the beauty of iconic battlefields, and the branching attack strings (where strong and weak attacks could be alternated to execute unique moves) were removed in favor of even simpler combos that used only a single button each.

Even worse, the iconic designs and weapons of some of the game's most popular characters were removed. The transition from kingdom-based story modes to character-based story modes in Dynasty Warriors 5 had been an interesting change, but clearly it was too much for the Dynasty Warriors 6 team to handle. The only title to have fewer playable characters than its predecessor, Dynasty Warriors 6 further limited character diversity by cloning the movesets of over half its roster, stripping characters like Sun Ce, Zhang He, and Ling Tong of their famous instruments of war.

Attempting to bring Dynasty Warriors into the new generation, Dynasty Warriors 6 dug the franchise a hole so big that later games are still trying to claw their way out to this day.