The Nioh series deserves credit for bringing a consistent, distinct variant to Soulslike action RPGs, and for meaningfully improving over time. Nioh was fine, albeit clunky. Nioh 2 was quite good, and if you wanted to, you could happily lose hundreds of hours to it. Nioh 3, based on the five hours I've played of the demo – which is really just the first part of the game, minus a few features – could be one of the best Soulslikes ever made. For my money, the king of the genre outside FromSoftware headquarters is still Lies of P, and I can now seriously imagine Nioh 3 sitting right alongside it.
When I downloaded the Nioh 3 demo on Steam ahead of the game's full release on February 5 (on PS5 and PC, and perhaps Xbox once exclusivity drops), I figured I'd stick to my usual Steam demo plan: put in 20 or 30 minutes just to get a feel for things, then if I like what I see, save my appetite for the main game. Fortunately, progress in the Nioh 3 demo carries into that main game, so you're free to go hog-wild without needing to replay content later. But this is only one of many reasons that the Nioh 3 demo ate five hours of my life in one sitting. I still have a lot to learn and see, but across the board, this looks and feels like the best version of Nioh.
A long way from William
It certainly helps that my PC (AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D / RTX 5080) runs Nioh 3 at a locked 120 FPS (1440p) even with every setting maxed out. This shouldn't be a surprise for my rig, and I can't speak for every PC out there, but it's nice to have a PC port do what I expect. And for what it is, Nioh 3 looks pretty darn good too, though graphics have never been the series' strong suit.
What it is is a third-person action RPG set in a demon-infested feudal Japan, now with an open-world bent as opposed to a series of more linear levels. The goal is to turn your character – made with a nice suite of avatar customization tools – into the ultimate demon slayer, equipped with Samurai and Ninja weapons and abilities. That, and try to make sense of the heady historical fiction whirling around you while struggling to remember 100 proper nouns and sort through 1,000 pieces of gear per hour.
I can feel exploration pulling me forward while buildcrafting pushes me along
I was worried about the change in structure when Team Ninja first revealed it, but Nioh 3 has smartly translated the series' reward and progression systems to the open-world format in a way that, so far, only enhances them. It turns out Nioh is a good fit for a more Elden Ring world like this. The series' bulbous, ugly-cute Scampuss cats lead you to treasure when you find them, for example, and they're joined by floating fox balloons to shoot down with returning ranged weapons like bows, rifles, and hand cannons. These two feel like a natural fit for open-world level design, filling out the to-do list on the map. (The game insists the foxes love being shot, and there's a cute little petting cutscene for each one, so who am I to yuck their yum?)
Other collectibles include the iconic Kodama spirits, and I've never been more motivated to find the little guys since their cumulative bonuses extend beyond individual levels. This is true of Nioh 3's world as a whole; valuable upgrades, even new weapon skills or passive bonuses that quickly add up, are hidden all over the place. In just the first area, I've been surprised by the rewards from minibosses, hidden chests, and enemy camps. In between them, you'll find checkpoints you can fast travel between. Sometimes a rare, extremely dangerous blood demon will spawn and you'll have to work out where it is based on directional clues.
The demo 'ends' with a traditional, carefully crafted dungeon full of branching paths and hidden dangers, not to mention a boss fight that already ranks among the best in the series (at least for base game), but I've spent most of my time poking around the world. I can feel exploration pulling me forward while buildcrafting pushes me along, setting a wonderful, moreish pace.
Build a better Samurai
Buildcrafting has changed dramatically since Nioh 2. You can jump and double-jump now, either to dodge attacks or weave in aerial moves. Stealth is much more relevant, and so are stealth kills. With 14 weapon types split evenly between the Samurai and Ninja styles, if I want to use my beloved switchglaive or spear, I have to stick to Samurai. If I want something more agile and I don't care about deflecting attacks with last-second blocks – also greatly improved in this game – I can pull out tonfas or twin swords as a Ninja. (Confusingly, tonfas can also kind of deflect.)
You can change styles at any time, and the animation for swapping between them doubles as a special parry against heavy attacks – the best This Kind Of Parry in the series, I'd argue. Time it right and you'll get a big opening to deal damage, perhaps by chaining into the new powered-up mode, Living Artifact, which also has different versions for Samurai and Ninja weapons. If you haven't noticed, it's easy to get bogged down with nouns when you're talking about Nioh, so I'm trying to focus on the specific changes I'm enjoying.
Rare demon cores dropped by enemies now unlock build-defining magic spells and buffs, on top of talismans that briefly summon those enemies (including bosses) to fight for you, so they're incredibly exciting to find. Ninja tools like shuriken and fireballs have higher uptime since you can generate more of them by dealing damage, and the tools themselves feel far more powerful even at low levels. And with all these new and different options, the fact that you can redo your stats and skills at any time for free is just lovely.
Combat is so much more dynamic. I might start a fight by crouching down and sneaking up in Ninja form to execute one enemy, chuck some shuriken to kill a flying ankle-biter, then swap to Samurai style to deal with a brute head-on. During a boss fight, I can swap to Ninja to lob ranged attacks at a weak spot to take a bite out of the boss's stamina bar, or stick to Samurai when the going gets tough. Depending on the universal skills I have equipped – I've covered maybe half of the buildcrafting – I might break an enemy's stance as Samurai but swap to Ninja for bonus execution damage. I think Ninja feels stronger out of the box, whereas Samurai will take longer to get going, but both styles are clearly powerful and the interplay between them is delicious. I've actually stuck mostly to Samurai out of habit, but Ninja is a-calling.
The more I play Nioh 3, the more I like it. It instantly looks and feels significantly better than Nioh 2, which is really saying something, and there's still huge potential tucked away in its massive skill trees and seemingly massive world. If you liked Nioh already, I think you'll love this; if you didn't like the previous games, Nioh 3 might convert you.
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