Some tales, whether fictional or historical or a mixture of both, prove to be timeless. The Chinese epic, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, has proven to be such a tale as it’s been retold many times and is the basis for several properties. One of the original, and most popular, is the strategy game of the same name that has just seen its fourteenth installment, with more to come next year for those of us in the west.

The expansion for the game, Diplomacy and Strategy, was announced at TGS 2020 and includes more content and scenarios to play through, which you can read more details about through here. The game is set to come to Japan in December, but those of us in the west will have to wait a tad until February before we can play it as confirmed in a press release by the publisher. You’ll also be able to get a bonus scenario, “The Fall of Shu Han,” for free for the first two weeks.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14: Diplomacy and Strategy will release on February 11th, 2021. It will release as both a standalone product and expansion to the original release for PlayStation 4 and PC and only as a brand new singular release on the Switch. You can check out our take on the base game, which is available on PS4 and PC now, through here.

It’s hard to believe, but thousands of years later, the saga of the Three Kingdoms in Chinese history and lore continue to feed into popular games. There’s Dynasty Warriors, of course, as well as the latest mainline Total War title, but the original is always the Romance of the Three Kingdoms strategy game from Koei Tecmo. The fourteenth entry came to the west earlier this year (and in Japan in 2019), but we’re far from over with as a new expansion with lots of new material is on the way.

As announced by the company, the game will have a Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack that will come for both the PS4 and PC, which the vanilla game released on, as well as add the Switch. For those who purchased the game already, you have two options, either the Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack which includes the new expansion pack or the Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack Digital Deluxe, which also includes the second season pass.

If you are getting the game on the Switch or never purchased the original release, you have three options, all of which include the full base game: the Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack Bundle that also includes the expansion pack, the Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack Bundle Digital Deluxe that also includes the second season pass, and then the Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack Bundle Double Digital Deluxe that includes all of that and the original season pass that was already available.

With the expansion pack, there’s lots of new strategic locations, the ability to trade with Eurasia in a series first, the ability to further power up your units, and an all new “War Chronicles Mode” where you must test your skills in short scenarios with limited resources and map. The season pass content also includes new difficulty modes, map editors, additional scenarios and more. You can see the full season pass breakdown below or read in full through the official website here.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 and the first season pass are available now for PlayStation 4 and PC. The Diplomacy and Strategy Expansion Pack will come to those platforms and Switch on December 10th in Japan, and early 2021 for other regions.

Season Pass

A pass available at a discount including paid downloadable content released with Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14.

• February 28, 2020 – Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13 Officer CG Set
• March 19, 2020 – Scenario [Battle of Tong Gate] & Event Set, Editor – Historical Officers
• May. 28, 2020 – Difficulty [Veteran] & Scenario Settings Set, Editor – 2nd Wave (BGM Editor & bonus BGM Set), Scenario [The Lu Bu Campaign] & Event Set
• July 30, 2020 – Editor – 3rd Wave (Game Editor), Scenario [Hebei Conflict] & Event Set, Scenario [The Battle of Hefei] & Event Set
• September 24, 2020 – Three additional scenarios, additional difficulty

*This content is the same as the Season Pass released for Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14.

Season Pass 2

A pass available at a discount including paid downloadable content released from February 2021.

• February 2021 – Scenario & Event Set – 1st Wave
• February 2021 – Editor – 4th Wave, War Chronicles Mode Exclusive Scenario 1
• February 2021 – Scenario & Event Set – 2nd Wave, War Chronicles Mode Exclusive Scenario 2
• March 2021 – War Chronicles Mode Exclusive Scenario 3, Additional Events (set of 5) 1, Watercolor Style Officer Set (Wei, Wu, Shu)
• April 2021 – Scenario & Event Set – 3rd Wave, RTK13 Officer Face CG Set, War Chronicles Mode Exclusive Scenario 4, Additional Events (set of 5) 2
• May 2021 – War Chronicles Mode Exclusive Scenario 5, Additional Events (set of 5) 3

But the fourteenth (yes, fourteenth) game in the series is available now, and it’s come to the west, thankfully enough. I say thankfully, but that in and of itself should not be construed as an endorsement of quality, or stamp of approval. My appreciation for Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 borders more on academic than anything else. Indeed, as a long time fan of strategy games, Romance of the Three Kingdoms left me feeling quite cold in a lot of ways.

The biggest stumble the game makes, in my opinion, is the interface. To be perfectly fair, strategy games have labyrinthine interfaces, that can be hard to adapt to the limited inputs consoles provide. However, in an era when we have seen games successfully make the jump to consoles with fine tuned interfaces designed to keep things quick and moving, Romance of the Three Kingdoms started life as a PS4 game, and was then ported to PC as well for the western release. This being a console first game means there is little excuse for the interface to be as bad as it is.

"There are menus and submenus, nestled within one another, mapped to all sorts of unintuitive button presses, and flagrantly disregarding some of the most basic rules of interface design."

And it’s pretty bad, honestly. There are menus and submenus, nestled within one another, mapped to all sorts of unintuitive button presses, and flagrantly disregarding some of the most basic rules of interface design (what is the option in the menu you have selected, the one highlighted in black, or the one in white? Have fun figuring that out, and hopefully you don’t wreck your military as you struggle with getting a handle on this extremely basic UI element). Even something as simple as the confirmation button can change from being Triangle and Square within the same action, just at two separate levels (and most actions in the game require you to confirm things at least twice, which means you better get used to remembering when to press which button to proceed).

There are menus upon menus, and controls that are bizarrely hard to come to grips with, but there is a method to the madness, to be very fair. Romance of the Three Kingdoms actually suffers from UI paradigms and concepts that have been slowly added to it over the 35 year history it has had, which means there are a lot of things it is doing that make total sense to those in the know – and no sense to those not. On the flip side, however, this means that once you do get used to the controls and interface, which can take hours, ultimately it’ll all make sense (either that, or you’ll have internalized its bizarre and perplexing lack of logic). Either way, however, the interface is less of a hang up the more you are used to it.

As frightening as the game’s interface can be – and it can look positively terrifying to the unacquainted newcomer – this game is actually extremely newcomer friendly, with a bunch of tutorials designed to help you come to terms with the game’s basic concept, mechanics, interface, layout, controls, and some fundamental strategies to keep your head above water as you try to unify China. Newcomers are absolutely going to find the tutorials invaluably helpful, and while these are nowhere near as good as Total War, they get the job done very well, and I have no complaints with them.

The actual strategy and tactics part of the game is an interesting paradox of feeling too deep, but not deep enough, often at the same time. Opening up, well, anything in the game will present you with screens and graphs and tables of components and elements for you to consider and ostensibly micromanage. It, again, can look terrifying (and is in line with the positively ghastly UI), but once you have figured out how to maximize the development and stability of your territory, things can become almost disappointingly automatic.

Now, to be very fair, this is a problem most strategy games suffer from (and it’s why my favorite part of any strategy game is the very beginning, where you don’t have much and have to build your way up. So the problem here isn’t unique to Romance of the Three Kingdoms as much as it is endemic to the whole genre – but if all the information and options the game throws at you made you think this one might be a bit different on that front, don’t hold your breath.

"Once things do click, you will find you have a ridiculous amount of extremely satisfying strategy content to make your way through."

For all my criticisms of the game’s ridiculously bad UI or controls, or even its strategy and tactics, once it all clicks together, it grabs you and doesn’t let go. The actual military side of things is remarkably well fleshed out and while the urban development and economic micromanagement parts of it all aren’t quite as satisfying as the military stuff, they at the very least help to keep things interesting and varied.

Once that happens, and things do click, you will find you have a ridiculous amount of extremely satisfying strategy content to make your way through. There are so many historical and fictitious scenarios for you to play through – once more, just looking at that list can be frightening. Fans of western strategy games, however, will probably be immensely disappointed that the game has no skirmish or random map mode, meaning you have to play through these pre-fabbed scenarios.

To the game’s credit, it does let you create your own custom characters, with their own abilities, family histories, tactics, and more. You can then use these characters as you wish across any campaign in the game, which means that theoretically, you can basically play a custom skirmish. I have to imagine this will find a lot of takers and fans especially in the modding community, but for those not too big on setting up a cavalcade of their own characters (and you will need to make quite a few of your own to truly be able to enjoy a “custom” game), do bear in mind that the pre-existing campaigns are all you get – there isn’t a multiplayer mode either.

In spite of all the shortcomings I have named, however, Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 is worth it for hardcore fans of strategy games. Many of those will probably – hopefully – get this on PC, where a lot of its control and UI troubles will go away (or at least matter less). But regardless of how much you have to struggle with the controls and UI, under all of the clunkiness and bad habits picked up over 13 games and 35 years, you will find a surprisingly addictive strategy game unlike anything else on the market – if you can put up with it long enough to get to that stage.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 4.

It’s getting to be that time again when we revisit the Chinese epic, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The fourteenth installment in the long-running strategy series promises to give fans what they want, and today we got two videos: one is more gameplay footage for the English release and another is a breakdown of the game’s development and inspirations.

First up, we get more English gameplay for the title. You see the gameplay through the point of view of  Cao Cao, one of the most well known and liked characters from the franchise. You can also check out more English gameplay footage through here.

Secondly, we get a talk between Producer Kazuhiro Echigoya as well as Ken Kitami. Kitami had the same role as Echigoya on Romance of the Three Kingdoms 11, and was actually Echigoya’s boss at one point. 14 takes a lot of inspiration from the eleventh entry, as mentioned below, so it’s interesting to see the two Producers talk about that and various aspects of the new title. Check out both videos below.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 will launch for PlayStation 4 and PC on February 28th.

While we’ve gone through the story of Romance of the Three Kingdoms many times at this point, Koei Tecmo seems to have no problems being able to create new material from it. We’re on the cusp of the fourteenth installment in their strategy game series based on the Chinese historical epic. We’ve seen a lot of Japanese footage of the title, such as a massive breakdown of the gameplay loop. Now, we get a brief taste in English as well.

A new gameplay trailer details the game’s features as well as the many familiar officers that will play key roles in its multilayered story.  Things like duels, formations, the campaign and special rules are also touched upon. Check it out below.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 is available for PlayStation 4 and PC already in Japan. The game will come to other regions on February 28th. You can read our interview with Producer Kazuhiro Echigoya about the game through here.

It was a busy week in Japan in terms of new video game releases, and that’s been in the newest Famitsu weekly sales charts. There’s four new releases in the top 10 this week, two of which take the very top spots. Yakuza: Like a Dragon has seen its Japanese launch, and debuts on top of the charts, selling nearly 157,000 units. Trailing it in second place (with a sizeable gap separating the two) is fellow debutant Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, which sold over 89,000 copies.

This means that the PS4 finally gets a few games into the charts after a couple of consecutive weeks that saw the top 10 being totally dominated by Switch releases. This also means that Pokemon Sword and Shield have finally bee dethroned from the perch, after their record-breaking run on top of the charts, selling over 55,000 units and charting third.

Ring Fit Adventure sees a bit of a bump from last week, selling over 35,000 copies at No. 4. Meanwhile, PS4 console exclusive Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 debuts in fifth place with over 20,000 units sold. New Switch release Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore is the fourth and final debutant in the top 10 this week, selling over 18,000 copies at No. 6.

You can check out the full Famitsu software and hardware sales charts for the week ending January 19 below.

Software sales (followed by lifetime sales)

01. [PS4] Yakuza: Like a Dragon – 156.993 / NEW
02. [PS4] Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot – 89.537 / NEW
03. [NSW] Pokemon Sword / Shield – 55.604 / 3.312.358
04. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure – 35.860 / 583.429
05. [PS4] Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 – 20.095 / NEW
06. [NSW] Tokyo Mirage Session #FE Encore – 18.797 / NEW
07. [NSW] Dr. Kawashima’s Brain Training for Nintendo Switch – 15.790 / 107.698
08. [NSW] Minecraft – 13.919 / 1.222.666
09. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – 12.370 / 2.737.674
10. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate – 12.347 / 3.522.802

Hardware sales

Nintendo Switch – 96,458
PS4 – 6,325
Xbox One – 74
Nintendo 3DS – 766

[Via ResetEra]

It can be hard to believe that a 14th Century novel written about thousand year old history could be eternally retold in various forms, but here we are on the verge of the fourteenth Romance of the Three Kingdoms video game (not to mention the long running Dynasty Warriors also based on that). The game aims to recreate the long saga in your image and today we got a lot of new gameplay showing how that will be done.

Today publisher and developer Koei Tecmo released a very long gameplay session that clocks in at just under two hours. Unfortunately, it’s all in Japanese (the Japan release is one month ahead of the English one), and since the game is pretty text heavy it may be difficult to follow if you don’t understand some of the language. It does however give you a good feel for how a typical game session will be. Check it out below.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 will release on February 28th for PlayStation 4 and PC. We have an interview with Producer Kazuhiro Echigoya with more about the game, which you can read through here.

Last year we got the treat of seeing a new take on the Three Kingdoms saga. Koei Tecmo has had something of a monopoly on the story between their Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms titles, but Sega and Creative Assembly presented a new take with their Total War version of the epic Chinese novel. Now, though, Koei Tecmo is back with their fourteenth installment in their own strategy series, Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14, and we got a look at its opening sequence.

You can see the opening below. Those familiar with the games will recognize a lot of the key players in the epic story among all the flash and fun colors. Like all the previous games, however, the focus will be on the strategy and developing relationships.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 is slated to come to both PlayStation 4 and PC on February 28th. For a chat about the upcoming title, we got to sit down with Producer Kazuhiro Echigoya, which you can read through here.

The beginning of next year will kick off with Romance of the Three Kingdom‘s fourteenth outing. The strategy series is a loose adaptation of the epic Chinese novel of the same name and takes things away from the hacking and slashing of its sister series, instead focusing on pure strategy. The  fourteenth game will also get a slick new look.

Today a second preview trailer was posted. Unfortunately, the whole thing is in Japanese, so if you don’t speak that a lot of the details of gameplay will go over your head, but you can still get a good look at the game’s new interface and artwork for the various generals that fans will be familiar with it. Check it out below.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14 will launch for both PlayStation 4 and PC on February 28th 2020 with early purchasers getting access to the  “Battle of Yiling” scenario for free for a limited time. You can also check out our interview Producer Kazuhiro Echigoya through here.

"Our first thought was to go back to the easy to understand style of the first Romance of the Three Kingdoms game but using current technology."

What was behind the decision to return to the classic gameplay style of from RTK 9 and 11?

Our first thought was to go back to the easy to understand style of the first Romance of the Three Kingdoms game but using current technology. In those discussions, the ideas of colouring in according to the forces’ colours and battling over land came up, so when we though further about what kind of system would be best, we came up with the direction of a single map monarchy.

And then when you think about a single map monarchy game, from the RTK series RTK9 and RTK11 are precursors in this, so naturally we referenced these titles. On top of that, the simultaneous plots use RTK9 as a base, because in order to bring out the uniqueness of the officers, we felt that it is alluring to have time allocated where they can’t be controlled.

Can you talk to us about the new AI system and what impact that will have on gameplay?

The AI in this game has been designed in stages of force, army, troops and officers and they are organically coordinated. Depending on the actions taken by the player or the current situation, it will analyse what is needed for the force and determine guidelines which then the armies will operate accordingly, activate the troops, and in the end determine what actions each officer will take. From this, all of the actions are coordinated so the AI logic is coherent, and while there might be mysterious actions on a micro level, from the macro level players will see things such as useful moves that surpasses their imaginations. Please look forward how the AI reacts!

With characters and officers having more individuality to them, how does that affect the general gameplay loop?

The officers’ personalities include 141 types of characteristics such as “Ignore ZOC” (Zone of Control), “Army abilities increase when troops decrease”, “Disable strategy”, “Promote development”, so these officers that possess distinct personalities will literally perform heroic tasks in the game.  In battle, generally the supplies and military power of the troops become the key factors in determining victory or defeat, but officers that are uniquely heroes such as Lu Bu and Zhuge Liang will become a bigger accent in logical battles.

On the other hand, officers will each have their own doctrine and when they become the ruler of a force it will change the design of the administration they can form. For Lu Bu it would be battle, Sun Quan would be diplomacy, so each force can use their strengths and it becomes vital when making the choice to decide in what direction you want to strengthen your force. Depending on what scenario is played with which ruler will largely change the strategy and steps to take.

"Understanding what each officer can and can’t do, and then thinking about what is or is not needed on the battlefield at this very moment will be a very enjoyable part of selecting officers that are suited for the situation at hand. "

Is that something that also lends itself to more effective storytelling?

We have prepared 7 scenarios that fit well with RTK, as well as over 100 events. The events are different than in previous games in that they do not randomly occur, rather players have the option to select and then proceed with them. By being able to select the events yourself, and expand the game world following the RTK story, definitely means that events are part of the strategy when battling.

Can you talk to us about War Fronts and what they entail?

In this game, smaller plots of land are collected together and shown on a single map, and every single area represents strategic units. The broader the area, the stronger the force, and if land is taken away then you are weakened accordingly, so in this game it becomes important to manage and overtake land. The area of land that is controlled by a force is the battle line.

Within the battle line areas, income can be earned, and supplies become available when operating troops. Also, depending on how land is taken, buffs are given to troops, allowing them to battle in even more favourable conditions. So taking over the frontline becomes very valuable in both diplomacy and battle. Where and in what form do you expand your front line, and the battle that emerges becomes key.

How much variety can we expect between all the officers in the game? I imagine something like that would be more important than ever, given how many of them there are supposed to be in RTK 14.

In addition to existing parameters (military force, etc.), there are 141 types of traits (officers characteristics) available, and each officer can have up to 5 types allocated. For each trait there are various positive and negative aspects, and depending on how these are combined, the diversity of the 1000+ officers will widen. Also, the types of formations and tactics are determined based on the officer, so all officers have different settings of parameters, traits, formations and tactics, and we can probably say that there are no two officers that possess the exact same abilities.

Understanding what each officer can and can’t do, and then thinking about what is or is not needed on the battlefield at this very moment will be a very enjoyable part of selecting officers that are suited for the situation at hand.

"The concept is that by simply being always aware of the situation of the land and the state of the battle line, players will naturally be able to use the various systems of the game."

Considering how dense the subject material here is, and how many systems there are usually in play in these games at the same time, how do you balance mechanical depth with accessibility? Is that something you’re focusing on with RTK 14?

For in-game elements, we are preparing many different things, but all systems will come together in competing over land. In battle, when the battle line is expanded, send out officials to the areas taken over to proceed with domestic development, and with the earned revenue head back into battle. While that is happening, the burden of using the connected land as a supply route and the burden of strengthening troops takes a toll, and fumbles in strategies over plans and foreign negotiations may arise. All of these aspects are connected through the land in this game.

The concept is that by simply being always aware of the situation of the land and the state of the battle line, players will naturally be able to use the various systems of the game. In addition, by showing the land divided into colours, the concept is simplified and the game can be enjoyed even more. I think players can feel the simple but deep game elements through the colours.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms 13 received some criticism for being something of an unpolished experience in terms of bugs and technical optimization- are you looking to ensure that doesn’t happen with 14?

We are doing everything we can to prevent this. With regards to the AI, we plan on continuously improving it through updates.

Do you have plans to launch on any other platform?

There are no plans other than PS4 and Steam.

How will the PS4 Pro version turn out in terms of resolution and frame rate?

There are no PS4 Pro specific aspects. It will be full HD, 30 FPS.

The PS5 is confirmed to have an SSD. From a development perspective, how will this help you to improve game performance in the future?

It may not be directly related to the performance improvement, but I think it will make it more standard to see things seamlessly onscreen.

"I don’t think backward compatibility will have much of an impact in growing or expanding our past titles. I think the biggest point for players is being able to carryover the content, or assets, that they currently own."

The PS5 will have a Zen 2 CPU processor which is a major leap over the CPUs found in the PS4 and Xbox One. From a development perspective, how will this help you in developing games of the future?

I think it will be a great help in acceleration and strengthening algorithms.

Xbox Scarlett features GDDR6 memory. How will this increase in memory bandwidth help you in the future?

I think increases in rendering capability will greatly help in advancing expressiveness and realistic depictions.

Backward compatibility is a big feature PS5. How will it help your past library to evolve and grow?

I don’t think it will have much of an impact in growing or expanding our past titles. I think the biggest point for players is being able to carryover the content, or assets, that they currently own. Since there is low risk when shifting to this new hardware, I imagine that the PS5 will be adopted quickly.