Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty Battle of Zhongyuan DLC review — Same as Nioh 2’s DLC

It’s been fairly quiet from Team Ninja these past few months, with very little fanfare and marketing over the upcoming expansions for their historical fantasy action role-playing video game Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Well, the first one, titled Battle of Zhongyuan, just launched a few days ago and takes place in the middle of the events that occur in the base game, following Cao Cao’s army after the collapse of the anti-Dong Zhuo coalition in the Zhongyuan region of China. I absolutely adored the base game, so I was very excited to jump into even more Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty content, so read on below to see what I thought about the first of three DLC drops!

Let’s get the most obvious question out of the way first: What does this DLC actually include? Ten new missions are added, three of those being main story levels and the other seven being side quests. It’s a shame to see most if not all environmental assets and enemies are recycled from the base game. The new story missions are also extremely short, and can be completed in an hour or so depending on your skill level. We also get five new bosses, one of which is just a reskin of an existing one. The final boss of the DLC, Dian Wei, is an absolute monster, and hits like a truck. The fight itself borders on unfair, but I found it mostly challenging and enjoyable. If you had trouble with Lu Bu in the base game, then get ready for this one because it’s about just as tough, if not tougher.

The narrative aspect of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty was never its strong suit, and this DLC doesn’t do much to improve in that regard. The in-engine cutscenes are well rendered and crisp and the Chinese voice acting continues to deliver on all fronts, but the actual story content remains an afterthought when compared to the game’s action and combat. The English voice acting remains abysmal and painful to hear so I recommend toggling to Chinese or Japanese instead.

There are a few new enemy types, including a snake-like creature that pops up from the ground and a demonic entity that explodes, but most of your time will be spent sparring with familiar foes. I did enjoy a refreshing change in the level design, with the conveniently placed flaming ballistas that you could use to blow up oil cans on enemies that have way higher fortitude than you. A few marking flags were also well hidden behind walls that had to be destroyed by said ballistas. A new weapon type, a fist-type weapon called the cestus, has been introduced and added in the loot pool, which was also a weapon introduced as DLC in Nioh 2. You also get a new divine beast after clearing all three story missions, but its abilities and kit aren’t that enticing. Perhaps what Team Ninja fans are mostly looking forward to is a higher difficulty level, Path of the Soaring Dragon, that unlocks another New Game Plus tier and 6-star rarity gear.

Those who are familiar with Team Ninja’s style of adding DLC won’t be surprised here with Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty because similar ones have already been done for both Nioh games. There’s never much content in terms of actual story or levels, because the bulk of it comes in the form of unlocking a higher difficulty tier for better weapons, armor, perks, and gear. The DLC is adding an additional New Game Plus tier with stronger enemy variations so that players can grind for better end-game loot. The two additional DLCs planned for Wo Long will most likely follow this formula of adding another difficulty and New Game Plus tier, with similarly scarce actual new content. Given that the developers are locking the end-game behind a paywall, it’s understandable if this DLC is a letdown for some.

However, it’s a bit upsetting to see this almost identical (in terms of type of content) DLC cost more than Nioh 2’s DLC. Nioh 2’s The Tengu’s Disciple DLC, priced at $9.99, added three new stages and a handful of missions containing new enemy types and variants whilst adding the split staff weapon and new guardian spirits. Most importantly, Nioh 2’s DLC introduced a new difficulty level, named Dream of the Demon, that subsequently unlocked a higher tier of loot and gear. Now Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty’s Battle of Zhongyuan DLC does mostly this, with its three new story missions, cestus fist weapon type, new divine beast, and Path of the Soaring Dragon difficulty tier, but is priced at $11.99. Why? Is it because of inflation? Because we certainly are not getting more content than the Nioh 2 DLC. Surprisingly, the season pass for both games, which includes three individual DLCs, are priced the same at $24.99. So if you’re a diehard fan of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, then I recommend getting the pass because the individual purchase is simply not worth it.

In order to access the content in Battle of Zhongyuan, you’ll need to have completed the base game’s tenth mission: Tyrant’s Final Banquet. Afterwards, you should see an additional tab on the world map called Ex. 1, which will let you pick DLC exclusive missions to embark on. Similarly, you will unlock the Soaring Dragon difficulty after completing enough of the campaign on Rising Dragon difficulty.

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