Most characters can be unlocked by beating stages, however, the player must meet certain conditions to get access to some stages that are required to unlock some of the characters, the conditions are related to the Bond System:
Stage | How to unlock |
|---|---|
| Battle of Guang Zhong | Strengthen the bond between Sima Yi and Masamune Date. |
| Battle of Jian Ge | Strengthen the bond between Mori Monotari and Jia Xu |
| Battle of Jie Ting | Strengthen the bond between Xing Cai and Maeda Keiji |
| Battle of Komaki Nagakute | Strengthen the bond between Zhuge Liang, Huang Zhong and Hattori Hanzo |
| Battle of Liang Zhou | Strengthen the bond between Liu-Chan and Guan Suo |
| Battle of Mikatagahara | Strengthen the bond between Lian Shi, Lu Meng and Masanori Fukushima |
| Battle of Nan Zhong | Strengthen the bond between Zhu Rong, Meng Huo and Zhang He |
| Battle of Tao shui | Strengthen the bond between Lian Shi, Ishikawa Goemon and Hashiba Hideyoshi |
| Battle of Xing Shi | Strengthen the bond between Tachibana Ginchiyo, Xiao Qiao, Sun Shang Xiang |
| Tedorigawa Kikousen | Strengthen the bond between Zuo Ci, Benkei and Xu Huang |
Some characters can be unlocked by completing the story mode and getting the different endings:
Ending | How to unlock |
| Normal ending | Beat "The Demise of Orochi X", Chapter 4 |
| Good ending | Beat "Into the Fire", Chapter 4 |
| True ending | Unlock all the characters (except for the ones that require this ending to be unlocked) and beat "World's End", Chapter 4 |
