We’re being spoiled for Musou right now! A month after Koei Tecmo released the exceptional Dynasty Warriors Origins, the company went and stealth-dropped Warriors: Abyss as part of a Sony State of Play show. This is an action roguelike heavily inspired by Vampire Survivors and similar “horde” games, and while it’s clearly a smaller-scale production than Origins, it’s a lot of fun and well worth your time.
The premise is exceedingly basic. A bunch of heroes from both China and Japan (it’s both Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors) are drawn into the underworld, where they need to fight their way through many layers of hell in order to ultimately rescue and release the deity in charge. It’s one of those narratives that you speed through so you can get to the action as quickly as possible, and thankfully Koei Tecmo is under no illusions about its ability to hold your attention, skipping through the dialogue bits with a minimum of fuss.
Once on the battlefield, you’ll control a single hero awash in a massive flood of enemies. They can recruit some allies to provide them with spectacular, screen-clearing attacks, but otherwise you’re on your own. Arenas are small and whatever objective you need to clear to finish the room is over very quickly, and that’s just as well, because the action is incredibly intense and would become tiring quickly if it was too sustained.
The Warriors series has always embraced the concept of “1 vs 1,000” where you play as a massively powerful warrior that can clear entire battlefields by themselves. In that respect Warriors: Abyss is arguably the purest execution of that idea. The entire screen teems with enemies, to the point where you’ll barely be able to see the ground underneath them. Meanwhile, the suite of attacks, specials, combos and ally abilities that you have fill the screen with some incredible fireworks. It’s actually hard to even place where your character is at times, other than to look for the centre of the maelstrom. That might sound counter-intuitive, but it’s not so much of an issue as the horde enemies aren’t really there to pose as a threat – carving through them is meant to be a visceral thrill and provide a sense of empowerment.
The bosses, meanwhile, are designed to be substantially more challenging, and this is where Warriors: Abyss shows its roguelike teeth. You’re almost certainly going to fail at each boss battle the first few times you try, but after returning to the main hub, you’ll have the chance to use the resources you collected in the previous run to power your character up and, eventually, you’ll be able to stand toe-to-toe with the boss. It’s a grind, yes, but it’s an enjoyable enough loop, and runs are so quick that you’ll never feel like you’re wasting time with deaths and restarts.
With very little narrative, and highly simplistic character development, the real reason to play Warriors: Abyss is to unlock more characters, and there is a massive roster to collect. Across Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors you can unlock 100-odd heroes, each with slightly different play styles that will be familiar from the main franchise. The size of the roster and the rate at which you’ll earn new heroes gives Warriors: Abyss a Warriors Orochi vibe, which is backed up by the horror aesthetic of the enemies and environments. I actually unlocked my favourite characters almost immediately (Sun Shangxiang and Kunoichi, with Oichi being a starter), but I nonetheless had a lot of fun unlocking the others and then testing them out.
There’s very little else to Warriors: Abyss, but then it doesn’t really need to be anything else. What you need to know is that the frame rate is up to the task the action throws at it, and the controls are slick and feel really good. You’re a fast and ridiculously competent hero, and the power fantasy in this game is very real. Koei Tecmo no doubt developed this quickly after seeing how popular Vampire Survivors is, and while it’s not exactly pushing boundaries, the team has done a great job bringing its exceptional Warriors properties to the formula. This is a game I’ll be returning to for quite some time, as stress relief if nothing else.
