This weeks Famitsu (also via Hachima) has finally confirmed some new details for Dynasty Warriors 9, most notably its development platforms.

Koei Tecmo is developing the game for PlayStation 4 – other platforms weren’t announced. While development is roughly 40% complete, a release window wasn’t confirmed either.

This is the first open-world game in the Dynasty Warrior franchise, however Koei Tecmo is still focusing on having players battle huge armies. You’ll also be able to unleash other abilities like traversing the battlefield with a grappling hook, climb high mountains or walls (via the new Interactive Actions), or shooting at your foes.

The entire region of China within the Three Kingdoms era is presented to players in a single, massive-scale map. Due to the size of the map, capturing regions has been expanded as well. You’ll be able to sneak into castles, fire bows from long distances, and experience a full day/night cycle functioning with a detailed weather system as well.

A new “State Combo” system will let you respond differently, pending the scenario. You’ll initiate a combo with an attack, followed by a stream of consecutive attacks that will vary depending on the status of your enemy – ending with a big finishing move.

The developer noted the mechanics behind attacking have been changed entirely, and there will naturally be new characters and new additions to boot. A new warlord, Cheng Pu, was named specifically in the update.

Koei Tecmo provided a brief rundown on what to expect in terms of the flow of gameplay: missions are found throughout the map, however there are core missions that will rapidly advance the progression of time (in a historical sense). While these core missions are higher in difficulty, if you clear related side-missions, they’ll lower the core mission difficulty.