There are several options from the Main Menu, but I would bet if you’re playing
Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires, then you are here for the strategy of Empire Mode. When you start a new game on Empire Mode, you will then get to choose a scenario to play. There are six available, plus you can do custom scenarios and even download scenarios. The first five scenarios are set at a specific point in history. After choosing a scenario, you will pick an officer to use to unite the land. Please note that you will only be able to select officers that were alive during that time period. This means that you can’t go looking for someone like Guan Yu in the Coup d’etat scenario as he died before it started or someone like Liu Shan to start as in The Alliance Against Dong Zhuo because he wasn’t born yet. Your starting rank will depend upon the character you choose. With some characters, you will start all the way at the lowest level and have to work your way up. You can see what your rank will be on the right side as you are looking through the characters. Also, your characters can get married as in the previous
Empires games, but now they can have children as well. We’re definitely not "historically accurate" in
Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires.
You will need to participate in the War Council by completing "Strategy Objectives." These earn you Merits, which you will need to level up or get promoted. Once you get to Prefect, there are two tracks you can get promoted to: Strategist, which you can obtain with strategy objectives, and Marshal, which you can obtain with battle objectives. You are also going to need to manage your resources. The top level you can rise to is Ruler. As you are playing, you will also earn titles for things you have done. Some titles are positive, for things like keeping your people happy. Some aren’t so positive, like earning a title for being a despot (having several unhappy territories). All of these titles will shape your character. If you move your troops right and balance everything well, it shouldn’t be too hard for you to unite the land, which is the ultimate goal. If it takes you longer than 50 years or if another faction unites the land first, you lose the game.
Free Mode is also available from the Main Menu. Here you can choose to replay any of the invasions, defensive battles, event battles, or quests that you have unlocked in Empire Mode. Personally, I just keep playing an Empire game, but Free Mode can be nice if you just want a quick battle. Edit Mode is also available. That’s where you create your own custom characters. You can have a whole lot of custom characters, so create away. I really like that you can mix and match their favorite weapon, the EX attacks, Musou attacks, and Rage attack since I really like the Musou on some characters, but don’t like their EX, for example. A custom character will let you get exactly what you want. They’re also extremely customizable. You can edit so many features that it’s almost to the point of The Sims in being able to create a character that looks exactly like what you want. There are also a lot of choices for outfits and accessories (the weirdest of which I think is the cat sleeping on your head).
You will need that custom character that you just created to choose Play Online (you can play online from the Empire Mode without a custom character). You can choose to create a quick match which will randomly match you with another player, if there is one available. You can choose to join, which will join you to a game. You can also choose to confirm an invite, which will let you accept a specific invite from someone else.
The other things you can do from the Main Menu include Gallery, which will show you images of your various officers and such. You can also choose Encyclopedia, which will give you a lot of historical information about the characters that you are using to fight. Options is also available, which is where you can configure your game.
