For PS4 players, there’s Circus Electrique, Dynasty Warriors 9, Melty Blood: Type Lumina, Monster Jam Steel Titans, Samurai Warriors 5, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated and Undertale. PS Plus Premium players gain access to three new Classics, starting with Twisted Metal and Twisted Metal 2 on the PlayStation One.

Gravity Crash Portable on the PlayStation Portable is also playable. All three titles are available for PS4 and PS5. PS Plus Extra and Premium subscribers can also download titles from the Essential tier, like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Alan Wake Remastered and Endling – Extinction is Forever. These are available till July 31st, so claim them now.

The game runs flawlessly at a steady 60 fps on both consoles. This is great especially since there can be a staggering number of enemies at a time, but the game holds its own in the direst of situations.

While developer Koei Tecmo hasn’t revealed any plans for dedicated next-gen versions of the game, it shouldn’t have much trouble reaching framerates of up to 120 fps. That’s of course – if they decide to do it. What’s there is great on either platform. Read our review of Samurai Warriors 5 through here.

Koei Tecmo has billed Samurai Warriors 5 is a reimagining of the franchise. While it does, of course, retain the large-scale battles the series is known for, it revamps the formula in several other ways, featuring a new visual style, character designs, storyline, and more.

Samurai Warriors 5 is available now on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC, while a demo of the game is also available for anyone who wants to give it a test drive. In our review of the game, we said, “Samurai Warriors 5 makes the series stand out from Koei’s other games and updates the musou formula in smart ways, but unfortunately cuts too much of what worked in the past to make it universally recommendable to hardcore fans.” You can read our full review through here.

Other sales figures include Winning Post 9 2021 with 80,000 units sold in Japan; Uncharted Waters 5 HD Remaster with 70,000 units sold in Asia; and Angelique Kuruminalize with 30,000 units sold in Asia. Overall, revenue is up by 80.4 percent year on year with download sales being up by 80.7 percent, followed by a 55.8 percent increase for mobile downloads and 45 percent increase for packaged sales.

Ninja Gaiden Master Collection is currently available for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. Despite a troubled launch on PC, recent updates have helped to improve the experience. Nioh 2 released last year for PS4 with the Complete Edition coming to PC and PS5 in February 2021.

First things first, if you are a long-time Samurai Warriors fan who just wants more of that frenzied, ultra-satisfying combat that lets you slash, blast, and bludgeon your way through legions of enemies in mere seconds, then, no need to fear. Samurai Warriors 5 feels just as great to play as any other Warriors game when you’re in the thick of battle. The square button for attack combos being punctuated with a press of the triangle button at any point – totally changing the combo – is still a system that works well as a foundation for a game like this. Unlocking longer combos, and thus more places to put that triangle button, and thus more possible combo results, is still a fun process that feels continuously rewarding no matter how repetitive it may be in reality. As per the previous Samurai Warriors games, triangle by itself still gives you a hyper attack that lets you zoom from one gaggle of life bars to the next, and collect an even bigger cloud of airborne enemies, flailing about as you push forward and build up that musou gauge.

"Change is often good for a long-running franchise, but it can also be risky. For Samurai Warriors 5, that risk both pays off and costs the overall experience in different ways."

It’s a solid basic combat system and stays fun throughout the experience. No need to fix what isn’t broken. But Koei did go an extra mile by adding in the “ultimate skills” which bear an unmistakable resemblance to Fate Extella’s “active skills” by essentially letting you put various special attacks or stat boosts in four different slots that can be activated by holding R1 and pressing the corresponding face button you’ve mapped them to. These moves are a great way to break out of a sticky situation with a powerful officer or just go a long way to keeping things interesting. As you unlock more things to put in those slots, you’ll likely find yourself experimenting with them a lot as they can drastically change how you play once you get used to using them and working around their cool down times. So, with combat that largely keeps what worked from the last few games intact but adds in some smart (albeit shamelessly borrowed) tweaks that freshen things up, the updates to the combat are overall a net gain for the total experience. On top of that, the new move sets, new character designs, and attractive manga-inspired visual style is more than enough reason to give Samurai Warriors 5 a serious look. Especially if you are a newcomer or a casual fan.

That said, as so often comes with drastic change, some Warriors fans might feel a bit left out. Namely, the fans who are used to the number of modes and characters that were found in the previous few games. Given how early in the timeline that Samurai Warriors 5 takes place, it makes sense that some of the characters from 2, 3 and 4 wouldn’t be there. But it also scales back the experience even more by only really focusing on Nobunaga Oda and Mitsuhide Akechi with the vast majority of the Musou mode’s scenarios revolving around their perspectives. Other characters come and go, and as you unlock “free mode” versions of previous levels, you can ultimately play them with whatever character you want, but there’s no mistaking how much of a slimmer feel this decision gives the game. Especially when you also realize that the main Musou mode and citadel mode are the only two modes. And despite Citadel’s timed, objective-oriented missions, they don’t really spice things up that much. It’s nice to have I suppose, as it does give you another way to play and your stats do carry over between both modes, but it just never quite felt like enough to me given that this game has no “historical mode”, no “conquest mode” and no character creation mode. It even scaled back the ability to switch between two characters on the fly, by only letting you do that in certain missions. The game clearly wants you to replay levels and experiment though, as you will want to upgrade your dojo and blacksmith buildings as fast as possible to open up your arsenal, but that’s not the same as having multiple modes to play with custom characters. For the Warriors fans who enjoy the vast array of ways to play that the older games have, Samurai Warriors 5’s leaner take will likely leave you wanting in that department.

Since the story of Samurai Warriors 5 takes place so far back in the chronology, newcomers should feel as welcome to hop in as any other time. The story, while limited in scope, does a good job of staying engaging as Nobunaga, his wife No, and their allies and enemies, cross paths in these fun, exaggerated versions of real historical events. The new art style comes together with the series’ trademark outlandish outfits and exaggerated dialogue quite well in the cutscenes. Almost as if it should have always been this way. I’ll admit I wasn’t sold on the new look when the game was announced, but after you see it combined with everything else, it does click into place rather well. The story itself also does benefit in a way from the more focused approach. Despite it only being centered around a few characters, we do get a much closer look at those characters with more time devoted to their relationships and personal struggles. The script doesn’t fly off the page and these characters are only so deep, but it’s obvious that they didn’t choose to narrow this game’s focus for no reason. They’re clearly going for quality over quantity here, and it’s a respectable trade in terms of the story.

"The script doesn’t fly off the page and these characters are only so deep, but it’s obvious that they didn’t choose to narrow this game’s focus for no reason. They’re clearly going for quality over quantity here, and it’s a respectable trade in terms of the story."

Samurai Warriors 5 might very well go down in history as a very divisive game in the series. It’s got a different look, and contracted story, and decidedly less content than its predecessors. Getting one of the better-told stories in the entire series as well as a fun, liberally updated combat system makes that trade feel fair most of the time, but it never feels like a bargain. It’s hard to not appreciate how well Koei Tecmo has done with taking this series in a new interesting direction, and it’s a direction I hope they continue with, but it shouldn’t have come at the cost of so much of what Samurai Warriors fans rightly come to expect from the series.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

As announced on the official Twitter for both America and European branches of publisher Koei Tecmo, the west will get a demo next week. You’ll get a chance to play two stages as your choice of Hideyoshi Hashiba, No, Tokugawa Ieyasu, or Toshiie Maeda. It’s more than just a tryout, too, as your progress will be able to be transferred over to the main game once it launches.

Samurai Warriors 5 will release on July 27th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC, with the demo releasing across all those platforms on the 20th. For the all the information you’ll need to know about the game, you can check out 16 things about it before the demo and game launch.

#SamuraiWarriors5

The demo will be going live on 7/20 on Steam/PS4/Switch/Xbox One!

Experience two stages with a choice of Hideyoshi Hashiba, No, Tokugawa Ieyasu, or Toshiie Maeda!https://t.co/b8qVw0P5Ce

**Progress can be transferred to the final game**#SW5 #KTfamily pic.twitter.com/5tXasQrrTR

— KOEI TECMO AMERICA (@KoeiTecmoUS) July 13, 2021

On Tuesday 20th July, a playable demo for #SamuraiWarriors5 will be available for Europe across all formats (Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One).

Save the date! (check below for full details)⬇️https://t.co/9rvmPmONJW #SW5 #KTFamily pic.twitter.com/S0sm4iwC4a

— KOEI TECMO EUROPE (@koeitecmoeurope) July 13, 2021

Scarlet Nexus is another new release debuting in the top 10, and like Samurai Warriors 5, occupies two spots in the charts. The PS4 version has sold over 20,000 copies and comes in at No. 5, while the PS5 version is at No. 9 with a little over 11,000 units sold. The total sales are lower than what you’d expect from a new anime action RPG releasing in Japan. Meanwhile, The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is in at No. 8 with over 11,000 units sold, while The Caligula Effect 2 debuts in tenth place with over 10,000 units sold.

On the hardware front, the Switch is, once again, the highest selling console, having moved over 72,000 units across the week. The PS5 trails by quite a large margin, having sold over 23,000 units.

You can check out the full software and hardware charts for the week ending June 27 below.

Software sales (followed by lifetime sales): 

1. [NSW] Mario Golf: Super Rush – 80,430 (New)
2. [PS4] Samurai Warriors 5 – 55,675 (New)
3. [NSW] Samurai Warriors 5 – 38,691 (New)
4. [NSW] Game Builder Garage – 23,280 (126,008)
5. [PS4] Scarlet Nexus – 20,160 (New)
6. [NSW] Ring Fit Adventure – 13,756 (2,654,669)
7. [NSW] Minecraft – 11,888 (2,019,432)
8. [PS4] The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails – 11,230 (New)
9. [PS5] Scarlet Nexus – 11,008 (New)
10. [NSW] The Caligula Effect 2 – 10,243 (New)

Hardware sales (followed by last week’s sales):

Nintendo Switch – 72,951 (75,077)
PS5 – 23,438 (15,346)
Xbox Series X/S – 4,113 (3,684)
PS4 – 2,548 (667)
3DS – 519 (481)

[Via ResetEra]

The trailer shows off gameplay for several of the game’s major characters, including returning characters likes Nobunaga Oda, Mitsuhide Akechi, Nō, and Ieyasu Tokugawa. We also got a glimpse of some of the new characters, like Mitsuki and Shikansosuke Yamanaka. From the trailer, it looks like a traditional musuo, though it sports some absolutely art design.

Samurai Warriors 5 will release on July 27th on Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC  in both a standard and digital deluxe edition on July 27th. The digital deluxe edition comes with the base game, the season pass, and several bonuses. You can watch a trailer for the game here:

The Warriors series is one that seemingly will never die. It’s now time for the hack and slash franchise to return once again to feudal Japan with Samurai Warriors 5. Much like its big brother, Dynasty Warriors, borrows from Chinese history it takes from various Japanese historical and mixes them up. Today saw a massive livestream for the game which included a ton of different reveals.

The livestream, which you can see in full below, was filled with content for the game. It included some first looks at some explosive gameplay, as well as the reveal of new characters with Oda Nobunaga and Nouhime. The gameplay also was mixed in with some cutscenes, giving you an idea of what the gameplay loop will generally look like. Shattered throughout is artwork and screenshots from the game. Unfortunately, it is in Japanese without subtitles, but you can still manage to see everything and parse the context. Check it out below.

Samurai Warriors 5 is set to launch this summer for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC.

Last month it was announced that Samurai Warriors would be returning with Samurai Warriors 5. The mousu series has been absent for quite some time, and now we know when we’ll be transported back to feudal Japan. Much like its big brother series, Dynasty Warriors, the game uses real Japanese historical events and characters with frantic action, retelling classic tales in loose ways. Now later this month we’ll see a bit more.

It was announced that later in March we will get a new livestream of the game. It’ll feature voices actors and a Producer for the title and will see more gameplay, characters and limited editions of the game. The stream will be focused on the Japanese side of things, but there will no doubt be some new content for the title as a whole. You can check the YouTube link below for when the event will go live.

Samurai Warriors 5 will release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC sometime this Summer. The next livestream is scheduled for March 24th.