Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires

Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires (真･三國無双5 Empires, Shin Sangoku Musou 5 Empires) is an expansion of Dynasty Warriors 6. It was originally scheduled for release in March but was delayed due to Koei wanting to improve the game as much as possible. Like Strikeforce, it was officially promoted in Gaia Online for a free item.

Gameplay
All of the characters from Dynasty Warriors 6 returned for the game. Zhang He, Ma Chao, Yue Ying, Taishi Ci, Ling Tong and Cao Pi keep their movesets from Dynasty Warriors 6: Special. Meng Huo returns with a different weapon than the one he wielded in Dynasty Warriors 5. The edit character mode also returns and is greatly expanded. All stages from Dynasty Warriors 6 and Dynasty Warriors 6: Special return to the game with seven new stages.

A level-up system for weapons has been implemented and requires players to have their weapons adjusted at a blacksmith. Besides adding more attack, players can also adjust what skills and abilities a weapon can have based on what items the player has collected from battle. The Renbu gauge is no longer an element that requires the player to build up as they play. Rather, their Renbu level is now determined by the rank of their character's weapons. Strategies are implemented in battle by holding L2 and pressing ,undefined,, (on the PS3 controller). Skills from the original title return but appear with many new additions.

This installment of the game adds a few new alternatives allowing players to serve as a vassal to another lord, or play as a solo-officer of no party, as well as giving the usual choice of being a ruler. As usual, the goal of a leader is to conquer China, while the goal of an officer is to support your leader until he/she unites china. The goal of a solo-officer is find a worthy lord to serve, thus changing your character into an officer. While serving under a lord, the player is given orders to participate in battles, serve as messengers and can disagree with their leader's decisions and offer alternatives instead. Officers, as well as those that choose to serve no party, can accept freelance missions from independent parties, during which they can form alliances with officers you perform service for. During battle, players have the option of betraying their liege and fight against their former sovereign to gain control of the land, or defecting to another force. Similar to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, players can also swear brotherhood or marry other characters in the game.

Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires introduces the use of strategy cards to the series. After each turn, a new card is drawn, each with its own action. Everything from recruiting new officers, to restoring troops, to using fire attacks can be acquired via the cards. Leaders can also use special cards to set goals every certain amount of months during scenes known as councils.

Downloadable content includes new costumes for edit characters to use and music.

Stages
These are the new stages in the game.
 * Battle of Lingling
 * Battle of Western Liang
 * Battle of Jiaozhi
 * Battle of Jinyang
 * Battle of Bohai Sea
 * Battle of Yong An
 * Battle in Middle Heaven

Allusions

 * Sun Ce and Sun Shang Xiang's old hairstyles as well as Motochika and Nu Wa's new hairstyles appear as selectable hair types for the Edit characters.
 * Keiji's Samurai Warriors 2 appearance is a downloadable look for Edit characters. Replica appearances for Himiko and Sun Wukong from Warriors Orochi 2 are also up for download. Dynasty Warriors 5 designs of Jiang Wei, Pang De, Zuo Ci, Da Qiao, Zhu Rong and Xing Cai were also started as an update on December 17, 2009. The last six costumes will also be available on the PSP port of the game. Models for other characters were gradually released for the PSP port, ending with the Other characters on May 6, 2010.
 * Downladable content that refers to the Three Kingdoms anime, Souten Kōro, is available. Original characters can assume the attire of the anime versions of Cao Cao and Liu Bei.