The second Nioh 3 was revealed as Staff Ninja’s subsequent undertaking, it instantly jumped to the highest of my most anticipated video games of 2026. That pleasure was dampened considerably when the studio revealed the sport’s “open subject” degree design. I’m very a lot over open-world video games, however I used to be notably fearful that we have been about to get the Nioh model of Rise of the Ronin – which, actually, was itself Nioh-lite in an open world.
Staff Ninja’s post-Nioh video games haven’t lacked in attention-grabbing concepts, and Ronin was no completely different, nevertheless it additionally squandered a lot of its potential on what ended up being the sport design equal of pondering your inflatable pool expertise can switch to Olympic swimming.
Nioh 3 feels prefer it was made with clear consciousness of that baggage. It wastes no time demonstrating that it’s nonetheless a Nioh sport at its core, only one that desires to enterprise past what the construction of these video games has allowed – although solely by itself phrases.
You’d be forgiven for pondering that Nioh 3’s open world is its headline characteristic. However the best way it’s constructed doesn’t name a lot consideration to that, so it was simple for me to overlook that I used to be, technically, taking part in an open-world sport. The staff’s choice to name it “open subject” quite than “open world” is telling, and it comes throughout as a aware present of restraint.
The world of Nioh 3 is a number of giant maps, every made up of smaller areas. A area can be a bundle of the kind of curated ranges present in each Nioh sport, simply with a number of routes of ingress and egress. This, in fact, opens up completely different gameplay alternatives of its personal. Roads and different distractions function the connective tissue holding these traditionally-designed ranges and dungeons collectively, current to subtly push you in direction of the subsequent factor.
It’s a extra sensible, to-the-point method to that model of open-world design that eliminates the minutes-long treads by way of vacant landscapes so lots of these video games simply can’t discover a good use for.
You surprisingly don’t get any kind of mount to traverse Nioh 3’s world, although you do get a – generally comical – supersprint that kicks in whenever you hit the highway. I as soon as once more can’t assist however admire the restraint. For a mount to make sense, that lifeless area between attention-grabbing bits of content material would should be far bigger, which, in fact, gamers are promptly going to skip as son as quick journey is unlocked.
Nioh 3’s method affords an alternate, and it asks for a little bit of belief in your half that it received’t waste your time. Quick journey exists, however I solely used it to mop up after having already explored every area.
The actual standout right here is the power to modify between two fight kinds at any second: Ninja, and Samurai. You’re taking part in as two characters concurrently, curating gear and weapons for every, and sustaining two builds. In consequence, quite a lot of the Ninjutsu, throwables and a few Onmyo-like spells have moved to the Ninja, which is a method Nioh 3 has made that a part of it extra accessible. Anybody conversant in the sooner video games is aware of that these highly effective talents have been usually clunky to make use of within the warmth of battle.
Most of your time will likely be spent because the Samurai, however the freedom to modify between the 2 on the press of a button offers you the motivation to discover how every of them may excel (or wrestle) in any given scenario.
Probably the most admirable factor about Nioh 3 is the way it builds on years of Nioh and post-Nioh video games, selecting which mechanics and core options to carry ahead, which to evolve, and refining every thing so it is sensible inside the sport’s world.
Stranger of Paradise’s gear auto-equip characteristic is right here, and a lot better carried out. It really works simply as you’d count on; automatically-equipping the perfect gear and weapons for the job for you. It’s malleable sufficient that you would be able to toggle it on and off, which you would possibly end up doing, relying on the standard of loot you get and the way bothered you might be about taking 10 minutes to kind by way of two inventories. It even enables you to goal weight courses, so that you by no means should immediately end up fat-rolling in the midst of a boss battle.
My favorite mechanic in Nioh 3 comes from Wo Lengthy: Fallen Dynasty, which stays one of many studio’s most attention-grabbing experiments in latest reminiscence. Elden Ring modified open-world sport design eternally, so motion RPGs that got here after wanted to be taught from FromSoft’s masterpiece. Fallen Dynasty, nonetheless, was a conventional, level-based sport, so borrowing concepts was out of the query.
What Fallen Dynasty did as a substitute, nonetheless, was supply gamers a really compelling incentive to discover its world, that, crucially, wanted to exist in a sport with linear ranges. The system boiled all the way down to progressively rising gamers’ energy the extra elements of its ranges they discover.
Nioh 3’s world is far bigger by comparability, however Staff Ninja discovered an excellent method of evolving the characteristic. Every area on the map is assigned an exploration ranking, which rises the extra of the assorted actions you partake in. Your incentive to take action is two-fold. First, every degree you achieve boosts how informative the map itself turns into. It begins off clean, then grows to point out a layer of roads and main cities, earlier than it marks down the situation of each collectible.
Climbing by way of these ranges additionally comes with a set of bonuses to fight, which apply to your character universally. Actually, there’s a mixed ranking that pushed me to max out every area to get the entire map’s bonus.
You possibly can draw a line from every a kind of again to the video games they originate from, however taking part in this sport and witnessing how a lot they meaningfully ameliorate the expertise in comparison with previous Nioh video games is the true win right here.
Nioh 3, in fact, evolves its personal collection’ mechanics, recontextualising them in some cases. The Burst Counter is not tied to your selection of Guardian Spirit, however is as a substitute assigned to the style-switching button. This achieves two targets. One, it trains you to recurrently flip between the 2 – a significant characteristic of this sequel, nevertheless it additionally makes pulling off a Burst Counter simpler, which suggests extra gamers are extra possible to make use of it.
Making the sport extra accessible with out compromising the core expertise is a objective Staff Ninja clearly had when growing Nioh 3. The place Ronin’s method had all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer, Nioh 3’s as a substitute sands off some unnecessarily sharp edges to encourage gamers to interact with the extra enjoyable elements of what stays a mechanically dense motion RPG.
Typically that comes within the type of deflects being simpler to drag off (and extra rewarding), and different instances it manifests in additional advanced methods that may take veterans a while to understand.
One facet that has sadly not advanced is the sport’s narrative. The construction of the entire thing is the one attention-grabbing half about it, and it virtually succeeds at distracting you from simply how underwhelming it’s.
This can be a time-travelling story that unfolds over 4 eras of Japan. Your created protagonist is one thing of a time cop (time warrior?) who travels to every period to rid it of the evil of these dreaded Spirit Stones. By regulation, each battle in a Nioh sport should all the time come again to Spirit Stones.
Intelligent although it might be, that trick can’t masks how outdated and unsubstantial it’s. That is nonetheless a foolish story involving historic characters; not more than an excuse to ally with/battle Figures You Know. You need to admire Staff Ninja’s dedication to utilizing the identical narrative mould with each Nioh sport, simply slotting in era-appropriate characters and occasions.
Three video games in, I do know higher than to count on a lot from that facet of the Nioh video games, however I used to be comfortable to at the very least have an thrilling wrapper. Splitting the marketing campaign into a number of eras can be a pleasant and handy excuse to have a number of open-world maps, which is one other method the trek by way of time stays contemporary.
Nioh 3 isn’t with out irritating moments. Bosses will nonetheless kill you in two hits; platforming guidelines will often confuse you; and there’s loads of PS3-era degree design ethos Staff Ninja simply can’t appear to do away with. The PC model runs effective, however I count on individuals with the higher vary of GPUs to grumble about not with the ability to lock it to 120fps, the occasional stutters when spinning the digital camera, and a few crashes when a number of displays are current.
None of that detracts from how great of an motion sport that is. That it continues to ship the collection’ famend satisfying fight, mechanical depth, and construct selection whereas evolving and constructing on the previous is a none-trivial triumph.
I discover it tough to ask extra from Nioh 3. It’s a sport that proudly broadcasts its targets on the outset, and trusts the participant to find how properly it’s going to nail each one them over the course of its 45+ hour runtime. It’s the assured results of shaking up Nioh’s close to decade-old system that’s solely outshone by Staff Ninja’s regular hand in crafting it.
Reviewed on PC, code supplied by writer.