Nioh 3 devs "never considered adding difficulty settings" to the notoriously brutal Soulslike games, because "one of the best parts" is getting good

(Image credit: Team Ninja / Koei Tecmo / PlayStation)

Nioh 3 director Masaki Fujita says developer Team Ninja never considered adding difficulty settings to its hardcore Soulslike games.

Team Ninja is a developer that is associated with difficulty. Before Dark Souls was around, the studio's Ninja Gaiden was the game people would use as a shorthand for "this is super hard," so when the studio got around to making its own Souls-inspired games, they were naturally even harder. The Nioh series is one that I personally find much harder than any of FromSoftware's proprietary Souls games, but despite that, Team Ninja seems to have a very similar approach to difficulty as FromSoft itself.

Speaking to Eurogamer, where Fujita was asked whether the level of challenge in Nioh games was non-negotiable, the director notes, "We've never considered adding difficulty settings to the Nioh series." And while that definitive answer may be a disappointment to some, for Fujita, it comes down to the greater sense of achievement from overcoming an obstacle – something FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki also believes is core to the "Soulslike" experience.