It is third in the Dynasty Warriors series in North America and the second in the Shin Sangokumusou series in Japan. It is a spin-off from the video game Romance of the Three Kingdoms and based around a series of books by the same name, written by Luo Guanzhong. It contains a number of fictional and non-fictional elements from the same era in Chinese history that Romance of the Three Kingdoms is set but follows the main events of part of the story which is to unify China under the single rule of a kingdom.