Dynasty Warriors: Origins – Visions Of Four Heroes Review

While I was playing Dynasty Warriors: Origins, there were changes to the personalities of certain characters that made them infinitely more interesting to me. The biggest change was Zhang Jiao and the route of the Yellow Turbans. After finishing the first chapter, I really wished there was a path to join the Yellow Turbans. Finally, there is a DLC being released called Visions of Four Heroes that lets you do just that.

Game Name: Dynasty Warriors: Origins – Visions of Four Heroes
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, PC (Reviewed)
Developer(s): Omega Force
Publisher(s): Koei Tecmo
Release Date: January 22nd, 2026
Price: $34.99

Dynasty Warriors: Origins – Visions of Four Heroes is a giant What If story content DLC. It allows you to join four different heroes at four different times. The first one is joining the Yellow Turbans right before the defeat of Zhang Jiao. The Second one is Dong Zhuo, as he takes over the Han for himself. Third is Yuan Shao, right before he goes to war with Cao Cao, and last is Lu Bu.

The Good

The Visions of Four Heroes DLC can be started as soon as you reach the final battle in Dynasty Warriors: Origins from any of the three kingdoms’ paths. You will be forced to start at the Yellow Turbans campaign, which I did not mind at all, since that was the one I was most interested in trying first. Zhuhe makes a return as she is your partner in crime.

The premise of the DLC is that it is a vision or dream of what could have been. Since it is a dream, Zhuhe is fine and well. She can be your companion in all of the levels, or you can trade her in for another character, depending on the faction you are joining. There were only a few instances where I changed her out; most of the DLC I used Zhuhe.

Most of the game uses the Inn as a hub. You can do training in the Inn, or use the shop at the Inn, or even talk to officers who decide to come to the Inn for food or fun. That’s how you get extra missions, too. It does mean less time in the overworld, but I think it focuses on keeping your time on the moment-to-moment gameplay.

The ranks of your weapons are no longer capped, as two more ranks are unlocked. There is also a new form of skill points called visionary skill points. Completing missions or fulfilling objectives in combat adds more of these visionary skill points. They can be used to buff your base stats or give you new strategic skills.

These strategic skills and tactics are used in a new gameplay mode of strategic combat. This will likely be a base for the future of Empires. You have your army going to war with the opponent’s army. You can see generals on the overworld as time is divided into turns. You can help out your army’s generals by defeating the same ones they are targeting, or you can just go straight to generals that are unopposed.

Each turn, both sides do damage to the generals they are in battle with. If a general gets defeated, they are unable to join you in the dramatic final battle that occurs once the time is finished. The same is true, however, of the enemy’s armies. If you defeat all the generals in strategic combat, then when the final battle happens, they will have far fewer forces than they would have ordinarily.

When you choose a general to do combat with, it places you into a skirmish. The objective of the skirmish changes with each battle. Sometimes it is to defeat 400 enemy soldiers, other times it is defeat three specific generals or take over six enemy bases. After the turns end, the final battle starts.

I think it was a great move by Omega Force to add more uses for the overworld. Using the overworld for the strategic combat gives a real sense of it being a war over a large area.

The Bad

Dynasty Warriors: Origins – Visions of Four Heroes is a base for empires when you look at it. However, it has a few issues, especially with the skirmishes. Enemy generals and ally generals will go wherever they want to go, but it turns into ally generals just going to a random base by themself. So three generals are going after three separate bases or locations.

This makes them much easier targets, especially when Morale is low. In the Empire’s games, I would play that this also can happen, but there is one key difference. I can issue a command to units in Empires. In Visions of Four Heroes, that is a single tactic you get access to via fighting generals. It can only be used one time. This means if I don’t get it in an RNG fight reward, then I will have to see the same generals get beaten, then come back and retry conquering the same base at a lower morale.

As much as I loved having the Yellow Turbans as the first chapter of the Visions of Four Heroes content, I can imagine that not being what everyone wants here. Some will want to join Dong Zhuo, and others will want to see Lu Bu’s route. Forcing you to finish the Yellow Turbans first will make some people not want to play it.

Putting Diao Chan as playable and giving her a conclusion in the DLC is awesome. It is also not awesome. It shows the fault of some of the loose threads the main game had.

The Verdict

Dynasty Warriors: Origins – Visions of Four Heroes is what I wanted as content for Dynasty Warriors: Origins. We get to join the Yellow Turbans’ side, and we also get to see some loose plot threads get tied up in this DLC. It also paints a picture of how Empires will likely go if Koei Tecmo gives Dynasty Warriors: Origins Empires a try.

Dynasty Warriors: Origins is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It will be available January 22nd, 2026, on Nintendo Switch 2. The Visions of Four Heroes DLC will be available January 22nd, 2026.

Review Disclosure Statement: Dynasty Warriors: Origins – Visions of Four Heroes was provided to us by Koei Tecmo for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.

Affiliate Link Disclosure: One or more of the links above contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you, we may receive a commission should you click through and purchase the item.