Team NINJA shifts to an open-world for its action RPG Souls-like to perfection with Nioh 3

With the third entry of this series, we now finally have parity as this is the first simultaneous launch on PC and PlayStation 5. And with each new game in this series, Team NINJA have been improving every aspect of it to be the best one yet. Nioh 3 is a constant dopamine rush where incremental increases to power to give you the confidence to clear that tough area or finish a boss that’s stomped you over and over again. Team NINJA are keen to ensure that this is still a tough game, and you’ll be met with the “freed from this mortal coil” screen often to remind you of that fact. Nioh 3 hits near perfection of all of the systems to be one of the deepest and most robust games for this hybrid genre that you must play.

While you placed in the shoes of aspiring shogun Tokugawa Takechiyo, you are given full character customization from the start, much like in Nioh 2. You’ll be able to make horrific creations to stunning look-a-likes with an incredible amount of control and depth. Historically speaking, the story for any of the Nioh games to-date have not been well-told, but offer impressive visuals and set pieces both through cutscenes and in-game action. This is a time traveling adventure, where you use a mirror as the device to transport between different time periods in historic Japan. You’ll bounce between the past, present, and future, meeting several famous figures, such as Hattori Hanzō as well as many more to ground it in some sort of reality even though supernatural yokai are roaming around. It’s enough that Nioh 3‘s time traveling is a great vehicle to see and do a lot, and to carry you through until the credits roll.

Nioh 3 introduces many changes, its biggest of which is the shift from mission-based levels to a complete open-world that becomes much more immersive as a result. You’ll increase a rating in each province for exploration, simply by traversing the land seeking out treasures, fighting enemies, and uncovering all of the secrets. Beside the story, there are formidable enemies to encounter, which are simply open-world bosses that you can encounter at any time, making the open-world feel dynamic and even more threatening. There are quests you can select and pursue, with a marker on your mini-map to point you in the right direction. Along the way there are enemy bases to retake and dispel the evil that has consumed them. Areas of the map will have a towering, all-encompassing corruption with a cataclysmic look that will be foreboding until cleared. These are known as crucibles, and will challenge you as you work through to cleanse the space.

Perhaps the biggest change with this entry, is the fact there are two distinct playstyles, shogun and ninja – all within a single character. The way the games have been played thus far is basically the starting shogun form. It’s not long into the prologue where you’re introduced to the ninja form, a lighter, faster, and agile way to play the game. You are in full control which style you play as, and can favor one over the other or play them evenly. All your weapon and gear selections are unique to each form, allowing you to build essentially two characters at once. In shogun form, you can press L1 to dispel corruption zones. In ninja form, that same button press will instead dash away from the enemy, regaining ki (which is your stamina) that was spent on an attack, almost serving as a “active reload”. All your skill points and attributes spent on the character build are shared, stamina is not. This is a deliberate decision that makes it so as you switch between styles mid-combat, you’re not using a near-infinite pool of stamina. Instead, this means you must think tactically and carefully.

Nioh 3 straddles an even line of being a tough-as-nails Souls-like where focus is on combat, and an action RPG that resembles Diablo where loot drops are commonplace. Your character can hold up to 2,000 items, which for new and returning players can be overwhelming. Thankfully there are systems like loot filters to dismiss certain items of rarity, as well as an auto-equip function to just always select the best gear. Team NINJA has made switching styles a part of the combat that works effortlessly. As you build up, you can unleash a guardian spirit as an ultimate to allow you to do big damage on groups of enemies, or more importantly, bosses for major damage or a great way to finish them off.

This is expected from Team NINJA at this point, but there’s a precedent for the Nioh games to have the second boss be a skill check for how the rest of the game will go. If you can beat the game’s second boss, then you’ll be able to beat any boss for the remainder of the game. Every enemy and boss has patterns you can learn either right away or within a few attempts. Knowing that once you get past the game’s second boss, that you could reach the end, that’s the right amount of hopium you’d want.

It’s unfortunate that enemies do not differ per time period, either in looks or variety. So going to new time periods and places while fighting the same old enemies is a slight disappointment, but it means you know how to deal with them. If you’re speccing towards the ninja, you can stalk enemies in tall grass and assassinate them with ease. Enemies have ki as well, and once you’ve exhausted their stamina bar, you’re able to do a devastating special attack. You’ll encounter human and demon enemies, both of which are able to be dismembered with extreme gore and detail.

There’s a wide variety of weapons to utilize that will satisfy every preference. There are katanas, dual swords, odachis, switchglaives, talons, and cestuses just to name a few. Then for ranged weapons you have bows, hand cannons, and rifles. All of which are appropriate for the time period. The more you use a weapon, the more you become familiar with it. These proficiencies unlock perks and increase their effectiveness. You can switch weapon types whenever and however you like, but certain attributes from leveling up will rely on them, so you should settle on what you like early on.

There’s a new type of weapon to acquire, crucible weapons. These are found in the aptly named crucible mentioned earlier. While they offer weapons that are stronger and hit harder, if you take damage while wielding them, it reduces your maximum life bar until restored at a shrine. It’s a neat risk/reward system that once against just adds another layer to Nioh 3 that you wouldn’t expect.

For every kill, you’ll acquire amrita, which is this game’s version of souls. This is the currency you’ll spend to level up your attributes. You can only do this at shrines, where you’ll pray to make these changes. All shrines can be fast traveled to, which means seeking these out while traversing the open-world is more important than it ever was before.

Kodama continue to be present in the world for you to send back to shrines. For each one you find, you’re given specialty points to increase damage on yokai or to improve effectiveness of elixirs when restoring health. These are minor upgrades (one percent changes), but in time can be really felt as these perks accumulate to be worthwhile collectibles. I love all the little details in the game, where you can still hit the rocks on wells, which will surface the bucket containing some sort of item. It’s still satisfying even three games later. Unfortunately your character cannot swim, which will result in some dumb deaths. The game’s saving grace is the ability to pause, which takes multiple clicks to initiate, is such a great feature.

To finish the main story, will take you at least two dozen hours to do. But in order to see any all there is to do will take you closer to 60 hours to experience. And at no point is it ever exhausting, you are compelled to find hidden bosses, discover every trinket, and see all there is. Now, if you want to perfect builds, find complete gear sets, you’ll be pleased to know that New Game+ is built into the game, allowing you to restart the game right after the credits roll, if you so choose.

There are some beautiful locales, showcasing castles, battlefields, forests, tundras, swamps with poison spiders, and more. Being able to see the cliff notes versions of the Edo, Takechiyo, Sengoku, Heian and Bakumatsu eras. The way Nioh 3 acknowledges and respects historic Japan while telling its own story and doing its own thing is so well done.

Nioh 3 is a visually impressive game. While running native resolution and DLSS on the Quality setting, I was getting a respectable 70-80fps in the open-world. Once I enabled Frame Generation and bumped DLSS up to DLAA, I was averaging around 113fps. Now, I wasn’t hitting massively high numbers on my setup, Nioh 3 does support 240fps (capped), so those with beefier systems can potentially have higher framerates where the prior games were locked to 120fps.

There are systems stacked upon mechanics with a staggering amount of gameplay, but you’ll not find anything that nails the Souls-like combat that meets a Diablo– style game with such precision. Nioh 3 is Team NINJA at the absolute top of their game. This is not third time’s a charm, but rather third time’s a gem. With the introduction of a seamless open-world and the brilliant dual shogun and ninja playstyles, Nioh 3 offers a level of depth and tactical freedom that few other Souls-likes can match.