The sixth main game in the long running Dynasty Warriors series (or fifth if one goes by the original Japanese naming scheme) once again allows the player to take a legendary hero from the quasi-historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" into battle against thousands of enemy peons. The player needs to battle his way through numerous battlefields, capturing forts and succeeding in objectives in order to bring about victory for his faction. It is an action game with traces of strategy when the player is faced with how to achieve certain sub-missions during a battle.

It is the first of the series to be designed specifically for Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 generation of consoles and graphically makes better use of their hardware, allowing for sharper detail and more enemies on screen. New elements include a redesigned combo system, called "Renbu" where longer, though less varied, attack strings can be made and the ability to climb and swim.

Contrary to tradition of past games in the series, Dynasty Warriors 6 offers fewer characters than before. Forty one characters are eventually unlocked, but only seventeen have story modes, each designed specifically for that character. The others can be used in the game's free mode and can be built up and obtain weapons and skills.