The earliest battle depicted in the game is the battle of Itsukushima, fought between the Mōri clan and the Ōuchi clan in 1555, with the siege of Osaka, fought between the Tokugawa clan and the Toyotomi clan in 1614-1615, as the closing battle of the game. Unlike the previous games, there are no hypothetical routes, as a result, the fates of the characters are played out as history stated. Many figures with little relevancy to the period, particularly women who for the most part stayed out of battles, have larger roles Koshōshō, notable for being Motochika Chōsokabe's wife in real life, becomes his primary rival in his conquest of Shikoku and is the representative of the Miyoshi clan in-game. The events depicted, however, are romanticized, and may or may not be factual for example, Nobuyuki Sanada and his brother, Yukimura Sanada, are shown to participate in the battle of Kawanakajima, even though both of them had not yet been born at that time. Like previous games in the series, the setting and story of Samurai Warriors 4 are centered on the Sengoku period of Japan, a period of much military conflict and political warfare in which Japan was divided between regions ruled by daimyō that lasted from the middle of the 16th century to the early 17th century. Enemy generals still use the older shockwave finishers, and are no longer fully invincible for their durations (they instead are granted Hyper Armor). Musou Attacks now have new finishing animations separate from their True Musou, but they no longer allow free-action for their durations. All of the stories lead to two separate stories: the "Unification", which mainly tells the conquest of Japan by Hideyoshi Toyotomi as well as the conflicts between the Eastern and Western armies after Hideyoshi's death that leads to the Battle of Sekigahara and the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate and the "Sanada" story, a parallel story with Unification that focuses on the Sanada clan. Įach stage offers a selection of playable characters for the player to use according to their participation in the battles consequently, some characters do not appear in the story, although they still appear in the aforementioned Chronicle Mode. Story Mode is also revamped it no longer uses the traditional story-per-character format from previous games and instead feature ten stories based on clans and regions during the Sengoku period, akin to the kingdom-based story mode implemented in the recent Dynasty Warriors games. Custom characters can also be played in the new "Chronicle Mode", where players can take requests for their custom generals. The create-a-warrior mode is retained it features much more expansive content, including the addition of two weapon movesets from the male and female protagonists from Samurai Warriors: Chronicles in addition to the three from previous games. Rage Mode renders the player invincible for a period of time, and also enhances the player's attacks as well as empowering their Musou attack by using the Spirit Gauge.ĭuels are featured, which occur when player-controlled characters meet with enemy officers under specific conditions.Hyper Attacks is a secondary moveset available to all characters that allows the player to sweep through and clear out crowd of enemies with a dashing animation, although it is useless against enemy officers, as they will either deflect it or are otherwise immune against it.Two new moves, "Hyper Attacks" and "Rage Mode" are featured in this game: The game features character-switching, similar to the spin-off, Samurai Warriors: Chronicles, with which players can take two characters into battles simultaneously, and freely switch between the two. A second expansion, Samurai Warriors 4: Empires ( 戦国無双4 Empires, Sengoku Musō 4 Empires) was released in Japan on September 17, 2015, and in North America and Europe in 2016.
Ī revised version, Samurai Warriors 4-II ( 戦国無双4-II, Sengoku Musō 4-II) was released on February 11, 2015, in Japan and was released in North America on September 29, 2015, and in Europe on October 2, 2015, but it does not contain the original stories from Samurai Warriors 4. It was also released in North America on October 21, 2014, and Europe on October 24, 2014. The PlayStation 4 version port followed on September 4, 2014. The first promo of Samurai Warriors 4 was revealed on December 7, 2013. While the game was confirmed to be in development for the PlayStation 3 as early as 2012, it was not until the SCEJA Press Conference in September 2013 that the game was officially announced, with a version for PlayStation Vita in addition to PlayStation 3, and was released on March 20, 2014, in Japan. The game was made to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the series.