Bandai Namco America has announced that One Piece: Pirate Warriors 4, the latest installment in Koei Tecmo's Dynasty Warriors spin-off, will be heading West in March 2020. Following the Japanese release on March 26, North America and Europe will be getting the game on March 27. A new trailer confirms the news, as well as shows off some extra gameplay footage.
If you're a mega-fan of these games (or the series they are based on), a collector's edition is getting produced for the PS4 and Switch ports. As shown in the trailer, it comes with a fancy box and a 30 cm LED diorama statue. It does not, however, come with the season pass content that the "Digital Deluxe Edition" contains. There's no word on pricing for this variation, though it will likely retail for $149.99.
In addition to that, Bandai Namco has confirmed the resolution that the Switch version will run at. As is typical with most multi-platform releases, Pirate Warriors 4 will run in 900p while docked and 520p in handheld mode. While Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition ran with slightly higher visual fidelity, these numbers fall in line with other ports from PS4 and Xbox One.
If you're wondering how the game plays, think Dynasty Warriors with a One Piece skin. Koei Tecmo doesn't reinvent the wheel with each of its spin-offs, recreating what works from its main titles for whatever IP it has licensed. This has led to some excellent titles (such as Hyrule Warriors and Fist of the North Star: Ken's Rage) and some iffy ones (Fire Emblem Warriors and Berserk and the Band of the Hawk).
The track record is hit or miss, but you can't blame the company for banking on fan crazes. Anime lovers are diehard for the brands that bring them joy and One Piece is clearly doing well. As should be evident from the title, this is the fourth entry in the One Piece specific spin-off series. Since the anime has a whopping 910 episodes -with more still coming-, Koei Tecmo should be able to keep creating these until we're at Pirate Warriors 20.
Whether or not fans of Luffy and crew will want that many games is another question, but we'll cross that bridge if/when we get there.
Source: WCCFTech