The Japanese numbering for the Dynasty Warriors series games differ from the English translations, which start counting the titles from the 1997 fighting game Dynasty Warriors. The original Japanese release of the series' second title added the Japanese prefix and was named . The English translation simply numbered it as Dynasty Warriors 2, and the main titles in the series afterward followed suit. is a 2001 hack and slash game developed by Omega Force and published by Koei for the PlayStation 2. It is the third installment in the Dynasty Warriors series in North America and the second in the Shin: Sangoku musou series in Japan; it was also the first installment in the series to be released for the Xbox. THQ distributed the game in Europe.
Dynasty Warriors 3 was the first in the series to introduce a two player mode and numerous other improvements over Dynasty Warriors 2. New stages, characters, weapons, attacks and music are introduced providing a completely new experience to a player that has played Dynasty Warriors 2 before. The gameplay engine and the graphics engine have also been updated, providing higher quality environments, textures and general overall graphics. Only one expansion was released for the game, and it was the first in the Xtreme Legends series.
Gameplay In Dynasty Warriors 3 the player takes control of an officer and must attempt to defeat the enemy commander. The player must make their way through the stage defeating soldiers and enemy officers while trying to keep their commander alive. As well as hundreds of soldiers in each stage, there are stage specific events to complete that can help the player's army and raise their morale. A higher morale means allied soldiers will attack more frequently and will be more likely to follow through with their combination attacks. To make this possible, officers and commanders have superhuman abilities and have the capability to kill hundreds of enemy soldiers per stage.
The main play mode of the game is Musou mode, the story mode of the Dynasty Warriors series. Each playable character of the three main nations have their own Musou mode which consists of a number of stages that resemble events in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The Musou mode for each character is a linear story where the user cannot change how the story progresses. The story progression for Cao Cao, Liu Bei and Sun Jian and officers from their respective kingdoms have the closest relation to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms story.
Initially there are 15 available characters to play as, new and returning characters can be unlocked by performing special events during battle or simply meeting them during battle. Each playable character has their own unique weapon that can be upgraded and allows for a maximum of 4 levels of weapon. When the next level of weapon is obtained, its strength is greater than the level below it and adds one extra attack to the player's maximum number of attacks.
Items are also hidden throughout stages and can also be obtained by defeating officers. There are three types of items in game, normal items, red items and weapons which can be equipped before the stage begins and will increase the player's statistics. Red items are specialised items than cause a special effect, such as starting the stage mounted on a horse or giving the player the ability to shoot fire arrows.
Dynasty Warriors 3 has an RPG element to it where the player can increase the attack, defence, life bar or Musou bar of the characters. This can be achieved by defeating enemy officers and gate captains who will drop items that will increase the aforementioned statistics. Although it is not necessary to collect these items, it is helpful to the player as in later stages as enemies grow in strength.
The two player mode (new to Dynasty Warriors 3) allows players to either go head-to-head in one-on-one fights or play co-operatively in any of the stages. The screen is split horizontally with player one on top and the second below. In one-on-one fights, the characters' statistics are reduced to their default to allow for a fair battle, relying more on the player's skill rather than who has the stronger character. In co-operative play the characters retain their saved statistics, there are no alterations to the stage and the players gain the ability to perform a more powerful version of their Musou attack (Special Attack). If the players perform their Musou attack at the same time within range of each other, the attack gains a lightning element and deals extra damage to enemies that are hit.When player 1 and player 2 are within a fixed distance from one another, and both perform Musou Attack, it becomes a Double Musou Attack (Dynasty Warriors 3 Game Manual, Musou Attacks)
Plot
Setting Dynasty Warriors 3 is set across ancient China in the Three Kingdoms era. The game begins at the fall of the Han dynasty shortly before the death of the Emperor Ling when the leader of the Way of Peace, Zhang Jiao,Zhang Jiao – Founder of the religious sect known as the Way of Peace. Declaring himself the "General of Heaven," he led the Yellow Turban Rebellion. (Dynasty Warriors 3 Game Manual, Characters, Other Heroes) led an uprising against the Empire.
The game features a strong mix of fact and fiction from Chinese history and often exaggerates characters and their personalities. For example, Lu Bu is portrayed as a virtually unbeatable, violent maniac. Most of the events and stages are reported to have occurred in the Three Kingdoms era during the struggle of power. The three kingdoms primarily involved, Shu, Wu and Wei, each sought power enough to overthrow the other two and unify China under their rule. Although the story in Dynasty Warriors is not perfect in the sense that it does not accurately follow the historical events, it has been changed to make the game more playable and less repetitive. For example, a number of the characters in the game died in the time frame that the game is set, but they still appear in later stages. The game features environments resembling that of ancient China and various items from the era such as fairy wine and dim sum.
It also touches on mysticism as some characters (Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Pang Tong, Zhang Jiao) have either magical elements in their attacks or completely magical attacks.
Stages Many of the stages are recreations of notable battles present historically or from the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, while original creations became more common with the newer installments.
YearStage184The Yellow Turban Rebellion191Battle of Hu Lao Gate191 A Surprise Attack on Liu Biao197 Battle of Wan Castle 197 Assault on the Wu Territory 200Battle of Guan Du200 Guan Yu's Escape 208Battle of Chang Ban208Battle of Chi Bi211 Battle of Tong Gate 214 Assault on Cheng Du 215Battle of He Fei219 Battle of Mt. Ding Jun 219 Battle of Fan Castle 222Battle of Yi Ling225 The Nanman Campaign 228 Battle of Jie Ting 228 Battle of You Ting234 Battle of He Fei Castle 234Battle of Wu Zhang Plains
Characters Shu Wei Wu Other Guan Yu Cao Cao Da Qiao* Diao Chan Huang Zhong Dian Wei Gan Ning Dong Zhuo Jiang Wei Sima Yi Huang Gai* Fu Xi* Liu Bei Xiahou Dun Lu Meng Lu Bu Ma Chao Xiahou Yuan Lu Xun Meng Huo* Pang Tong* Xu Huang* Sun Ce* Nu Wa* Wei Yan* Xu Zhu Sun Jian Yuan Shao Zhang Fei Zhang He* Sun Quan Zhang Jiao Zhao Yun Zhang Liao Sun Shang Xiang Zhu Rong* Zhuge Liang Zhen Ji* Taishi Ci Ziluan** Xiao Qiao* Zhou Yu
* Denotes new characters to the series ** Denotes characters added through Dynasty Warriors 3: Complete Edition Remastered Bold denotes default characters
The characters in Dynasty Warriors 3 are based around real and semi-fictional characters from Romance of the Three Kingdoms and that era, where some characters personalities and traits have been exaggerated and where some remain fairly true to the novel. Women of that era did not participate in any of the battles but there are a number of female playable characters in the game (Diao Chan, Xiao Qiao, Da Qiao, Zhen Ji, Sun Shang Xiang, Zhu Rong, Nu Wa). Zhu Rong and Nu Wa are exceptions as Zhu Rong was said to be the only female to have fought in that era and Nu Wa's character is fictional and based on ancient myth.
Remaster On 24 September 2025, Koei Tecmo announced with celebrate 25th anniversary of Dynasty Warriors, a modernized version of the original 2001 game. This remaster features enhanced graphics using Unreal Engine 5, with a planned release date on 19 March 2026. However, recent news out of Koei Tecmo report that the game's release date has been postponed, but is still set to release some time in 2026. The release date was announced as October 1, 2026 in a June 2026 State of Play.
Reception
The game was highly anticipated after its release being announced because of its numerous new features and improvements of the last in the series. Afterwards, it was met with positive to average reception upon release; GameRankings and Metacritic gave it a score of 77% and 78 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version, and 76% and 70 out of 100 for the Xbox version.
In just under four months, over 1 million copies of Dynasty Warriors 3 had been sold in North America and Japan combined and made it the first of Koei's games to pass one million sales on a single platform and making it a platinum title. Not only that but it topped the sales charts for five consecutive weeks and, according to Famitsu, it was ranked the 9th best selling game of 2001.
Dynasty Warriors 3 still retains a number of the bad features that were in the previous game such as fogging and low quality English voice actors. Although the English voices were poor (they have gained a cult-like status among fans of the series), the player has the choice to turn on Japanese voices and they are considered to be of a much higher quality. IGN strongly criticized the Xbox version over the sound, both music and the voice acting. Despite a number of negative points coming up throughout the review it scored 6.8/10 and the reviewer saw it had potential to become a very good game.
Famitsu gave the PS2 version 34 out of 40. Chi Kong Lui of GameCritics.com looked past the sound and graphical flaws and concentrated more on the gameplay and setting, giving a high score of 9/10. He gave high praise to how much the game was based on the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms story and even went as far as saying "All the costuming of the 3D models is ethnically authentic and beautifully lavished" whereas a number of reviews described the graphical quality as being plain and blurry (Such as the said IGN review). It is also notable that the IGN review was based on the PS2 version, which has more fog and slowdown (especially in multi-player) when compared to the Xbox version, and those were his two heaviest faults of the game.
Awards On March 6, 2003, Dynasty Warriors 3 received Animation Magazine "Best Overall Game Animation" award. This was Koei's first award for a Dynasty Warriors game.
Expansion
Dynasty Warriors 3: Xtreme Legends is the first Xtreme Legends installment by publisher Koei and developer Omega Force for the PlayStation 2. This expansion to Dynasty Warriors 3 was released for Japan on August 29, 2002 and on January 11, 2003, within the US and Europe.
Xtreme Legends added several new features to Dynasty Warriors 3, including new items and the ability to fully customize bodyguards. Xtreme Legends also included a Musou Mode for the playable characters who did not belong to either Wu, Wei, or Shu (Diao Chan, Lu Bu, Zhang Jiao, Dong Zhuo, Yuan Shao, Zhu Rong and Meng Huo). Xtreme Legends also allowed players to obtain a fifth-level weapon for each character and added two new difficulty levels: Beginner and Expert. (Otherwise referred to as "Novice" and "Very Hard" in game, respectively.)