Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires is an open-world hack-and-slash game played from a third-person perspective with stealth elements. The game revamps the gameplay of the series by introducing the open-world environment. A traversable map of China is implemented in which the player can freely roam on foot, horseback, or boat, the game focuses on liveable environments such as cities and towns and places where large battles take place. The characters ’move-set combinations are also revised.