Team Ninja’s Nioh series has come a long way. Long gone are the days of having the dull as rocks William Adams as the game’s main protagonist. Now, the series embraces fluidity and freedom, and this is best demonstrated in Nioh 3, not only in its robust character creator, but in the very way the game itself is designed.
Nioh 3 puts you in the shoes of Tokugawa Takechiyo, who’s set to become the next Shogun of Edo Castle. Their younger brother, however, is consumed by jealousy and betrays you by leading a horde of yokai to take over the country. Takechiyo must then transcend time itself in order to stop an evil force from spreading the yokai power throughout history. So yeah. Compared to the first game, where things were still somewhat grounded in historical context and reality, Nioh 3 begins to break away from those threads and go completely off the rails. Which is great, by the way.
You’ll go through the different time periods in order, but as you enter each one, you’re given complete freedom over what you want to tackle first. Whereas the first two games opted to break things up into separate levels and missions that you could farm and replay, Nioh 3 adopts an open-world approach, which affords players a lot more flexibility. This results in Nioh 3 possibly being the easiest game of the bunch — more on that later — but also the most enjoyable.
The best part about Nioh — and any of FromSoft’s games, for that matter — has always been the exploration. Just like its predecessors, Nioh 3 successfully brings Feudal Japan to life in a way that’s rarely seen in other games. From the folkloric elements like the adorable Kodama and terrifying yokai, to the stories grounded in historic references about the common people and their struggles, Nioh 3 truly feels like a living, breathing world, as cheesy as that might sound. By using an open-world setting, I found myself content simply exploring everything Nioh 3 had to offer instead of mainlining the story missions like I used to in the previous two games.
Because this is an open-world game, naturally that means there are side quests and optional objectives to pursue outside of the critical path. New to Nioh 3 are enemy base camps which — you guessed it — you must liberate from the yokai by defeating all enemies in a specified area, Ubisoft-style. These never got boring, though, thanks in no small part to how awesome the combat feels, and the fact that the open-world environments aren’t so large that it feels like there’s an endless number of camps to liberate. Further, liberating base camps often paves the way to a side quest you might’ve otherwise missed, and these are almost always worth doing.
As someone who’s gotten quite jaded and tired of side quests in video games in recent years, I found the offerings in Nioh 3 to be rather refreshing. Because. y’know, the whole world is at war and on fire and under attack from both enemy troops and yokai, there aren’t a lot of living people here. In fact, most of them are dead. Side quests are usually dispensed by the spirits of the dead looking to sort out their unfinished business before they can rest, and this adds a layer of gravitas and emotional depth to the quests themselves.
One early quest involved me following the story of a starving family, which led to me fighting a mini-boss in the form of a terrifying ogre-looking Gaki Chief who was just looking out for its own tribe. I still killed the thing, of course, but I enjoyed the little personal and emotional touches that each quest brought to the table. I found myself genuinely looking forward to discovering more side quests in Nioh 3, and there were times I’d get even more invested in these side stories rather than the main mission itself.
The open world also offers up other combat opportunities in the form of Crucible Spikes and Lesser Crucibles. These are also a new addition to Nioh 3, and they are areas where yokai will spawn more frequently, forcing you to eliminate them and destroying the Crucible itself to expel the darkness. While your Amrita gauge will charge faster in a Crucible, you can also take Life Corrosion damage, which decreases your maximum HP, when you get hit. The Crucible challenges often feel very high stakes as a result, making them an intense but enjoyable experience.
The rewards are well worth it too, as this is your main way of getting Mastery Points for filling out your Samurai and Ninja skill trees. Which brings me to the combat system, the meat and potatoes of Nioh 3.
Just like in previous games, there’s a variety of cool weapon types to experiment with. They mostly scale with Strength or Skill, though there’s the odd weapon that may scale with Magic instead, and believe me, Magic builds can become rather devastating late-game. Anyway, whereas its predecessors simply let you carry up to two different weapon types and called it a day, Nioh 3 takes things one step further by splitting your character up into Samurai and Ninja styles.
While in Samurai mode, you can equip certain weapon types like the Scythe, Sword, or Odachi. In Ninja mode, you’ll get more Skill-based options like the Tonfa, Double Hatchets, or the Kusarigama. The main difference between the two styles, however, is the function of the R1 button. The Ki recovery system makes a return in Nioh 3, where if you press R1 at the right time after attacking, you retain a portion of your Ki (read: stamina). You can still do that while in Samurai mode in Nioh 3, but things get more interesting in Ninja mode.
When you’re in your Ninja stance, R1 lets you perform a quick turnaround dodge that doesn’t restore Ki, but instead leaves a shadow clone where you just were, distracting enemies for a quick second. Later on, you can spend mastery points to enhance this ability, making it such that you restore Ki when the shadow clone gets attacked. This takes a bit of getting used to, especially if you’ve been spoiled by Ki recovery and being able to attack successively, but once you do, oh boy does Ninja style unlock a whole world of possibilities.
The main difference between the two stances is that Ninja style is meant to be much more nimble than Samurai, which is supposed to be the heavier, tankier class. You’re out there doing backflips and somersaults, and running circles around your opponent, while your Samurai form lets you hit harder. Certain enemies and bosses have dangerous attacks that will flash red, and these are countered by performing a Burst Style Shift, which involves you switching stances right before the attack lands. This allows you to stun your foe for a precious few seconds, giving you a window to deal large amounts of damage.
While you do feel a lot flimsier in Ninja style, that tradeoff is worth it. Because of how speedy some of Nioh 3‘s enemies are, playing in Ninja form can sometimes feel mandatory just to be able to keep up with them. It also just makes the game feel a lot more interesting in my view, as I was always more a fan of the swifter Skill-based weapon types in the series.
By letting you switch between the two at will, Nioh 3‘s combat system feels way deeper as a result, and so much more satisfying. Things get even crazier once you start diving into the individual skill trees for each weapon type. The three stances are back, unlocking different movesets for each weapon, as are unique skills and combos to help make combat even more dynamic. As expected, the combat system is the real shining point of Nioh 3, and I’m pleased to report that the game also makes it very easy for you to reset your points and levels if you ever want to experiment with anything else.
One of my favorite parts about the series also makes a return in Nioh 3: the blacksmith, and the ability to roll for special abilities on your weapons and armor. I fully acknowledge that this is my lizard brain and degen gambler side talking, but there really is no better feeling than spending hours trying to get a perfect roll on your weapon, and then taking that thing out into the field and absolutely dominating with it. Your mileage with this one may vary, as Soulsborne fans may prefer the fixed stats and perks of each unique weapon, but for me, it definitely works. Granted, this does make loot drops feel more spammy and less special, and your enjoyment of the equipment system will greatly depend on how much you decide to invest in the smithing aspect of it.
Because of how much there is to do in the open world, and how freely you’re able to experiment with character builds, Nioh 3 does end up feeling like the easiest game in the series. Stuck on a boss? Well then, just go elsewhere and do all the side stuff so you can come back even more powered up than before. It helps that the side quests feel so rewarding too, so you’ll never truly feel stuck.
For the most part, the open-world exploration is excellent, though I did find that things could get a little frustrating whenever we got to more intricate levels. Simply put, the level design in the Nioh games have never been particularly good, and the same goes for Nioh 3. There were times where it’d feel like certain levels were stretched out for too long, with shortcut doors and pathways feeling unearned or unsatisfying to get to. It also doesn’t help that a lot of the smaller set-pieces would start to feel samey after a while in each time period. While Nioh 3 isn’t a particularly long game, I did find myself starting to get a little exhausted towards the end. If it’s easier for me to just beeline my past enemies, then that’s exactly what I’ll do even if that isn’t the intended way to play.
Still, Nioh 3 gets a lot right. While my gripes with the series as a whole persist in this third entry, Team Ninja also makes great strides in refining and innovating upon its strong points. The open-world formula works tremendously well, and the insanely deep combat system continues to impress me at every turn, especially now that you have two different forms to mess around with. Nioh 3 is a confident step forward for Team Ninja, and the strongest entry in the series yet.
A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. You can check out our review policy here. Reviewed on PS5.
