Developers of the historical fantasy action game Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty have announced that it will get its first DLC on June 29th. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty's upcoming expansion is titled Battle of Zhongyuan and introduces a new scenario with a host of new content.
Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo released Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty on March 3rd, 2023. The game takes place in second-century China during the highly fictionalized version of the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Players take the role of a nameless soldier who rescues a Blindfolded Boy from a rebel attack. The boy turns out to be the Chinese rain god Yinglong, and players must embark on a quest to save China from the machinations of the Taoist sorcerer Yu Ji.
Team Ninja announced Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty's first expansion on May 26th. Battle of Zhongyuan features a new scenario with new stages, a new difficulty level, a new weapon type, and new enemies. Developers didn't offer much specific information about the upcoming expansion but promised to show more as the release date approaches. While Team Ninja hasn't talked about the DLC's plot, it likely takes place during the early Three Kingdoms period, after the main game's events.
Zhongyuan refers to a region of east central China along the Yellow River. It's often considered the birthplace of Chinese civilization and was viewed as the center of the world by people in ancient China. The title Battle of Zhongyuan may refer to the historical Battle of Guandu. It was fought between the warlords Cao Cao and Yuan Shao in 200 AD and laid the groundwork for the establishment of the Kingdom of Cao Wei during China's Three Kingdom period, which began not long after the events of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.
Cao Cao and Yuan Shao were major characters in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and the end of the game foreshowed the events of the Three Kingdoms Period. Wo Long publisher Koe Tecmo seems to have a particular affinity for the Three Kingdoms, having depicted it in multiple generations of Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. The most recent of those games, Dynasty Warriors 9 and Romance of the Three Kingdoms 14, released in 2018 and 2020.
Of course, Wo Long's gameplay has more in common with Team Ninja's Nioh series of historical fantasy games than either franchise. Unfortunately, despite Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty seeing a reasonably positive reception at launch, it failed to match Nioh's success. Hopefully, the Battle of Zhongyuan will give the game a much-needed boost.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is out now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.