Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a grim, mythological tale from the creators of Nioh and Dynasty Warriors

Microsoft's Summer showcase included a cinematic first look at Team Ninja's next project, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, a mythological and horror-themed game developed in concert with Koei Tecmo, the creators of Dynasty Warriors.

The trailer begins with a plague of locusts feasting on a pile of bodies as zombies attack the citizenry of a burning city. A serpentine dragon flies into the sky, and the trailer then cuts to a sinister old man spying on a pair of unnamed warriors doing battle in the heart of an army. The trailer cuts back to the destroyed city, where a centipede-like demon emerges from the wreckage. The trailer then ends with a swordsman encountering a mounted halberdier on the steps of a grand palace.

It's hard to tell what kind of game Wo Long is going to wind up being. The presence of Team Ninja on the project gives me hope for the sort of Soulsborne meets character action gameplay we saw from Nioh and Stranger of Paradise, while the game seems to be centered around the epic works of Chinese history Koei Tecmo is comfortable adapting.

It's hard for me to tell what the title, Wo Long, is referring to absent accent marks or the specific characters the words correspond to⁠—Chinese is a language with a lot of tonal and context-sensitive homophones. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is set to release in early 2023.

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.