Wo Long's first gameplay blows its pre-rendered teaser out of the water

Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja's upcoming wuxia action game, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, just got its first gameplay trailer and an updated Steam page. The gameplay and world on offer pretty much sent my personal interest in the game from zero to 100 at the drop of a hat.

We knew from Microsoft's summer showcase that Wo Long would take the Soulsborne-derived combat stylings of Team Ninja's recent Nioh games and transpose them on a mythic, ancient Chinese setting⁠—relatively under-utilized in gaming outside the long-running Dynasty Warriors franchise. That's an exciting concept, but there's a difference between finding out about it through a pre-rendered trailer, and seeing it demonstrated through some (admittedly cinematic and massaged) gameplay.

The locales are really stunning⁠—I was especially impressed by the ethereal, purple palace gardens featured early on in the trailer and revisited toward the middle. The gameplay looks exactly like the fun, fast, more character action-y take on Soulsborne combat that I've come to enjoy from Team Ninja.

Wo Long will have a rich catalog of historical Chinese weapons to base its arsenal on too: in the trailer I clocked daos, guandaos, and jians—one seemingly made of jade and another lit on fire D&D style. Team Ninja also looks set to flex its monster design muscles, with the end of the trailer showing off potential bosses like a giant serpent woman and a massive, disease-ridden bull monster.

It's great stuff, and I'm wracking my brain wondering why something more like this trailer wasn't shown off back at E3. I can't imagine development progressed from a point of not being able to cut an ingame trailer to having one on hand in just two months. Maybe it's too fine a point, but you only get one first impression and I'd pretty much memory-holed Wo Long until I saw this new trailer. Regardless, it looks sick, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is set to release on Steam in "early 2023."

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stunning vista of a palace garden, pagoda in background, foot bridge over pond in foreground — (Image credit: Koei Tecmo)

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.