Nioh director interested in making an open-world game for next-gen consoles

Team Ninja isn't planning or developing Nioh 3, but Nioh director Fumihiko Yasuda has ambitious plans for the new console generation and may even tackle an open-world game. 

Speaking with The Gamer, Yasuda explained that "Team Ninja would like to focus on working on new titles, so there really isn't a plan for Nioh 3 at this point." If anything, the studio may revisit Nioh in the far future after some new projects – which could include a next-gen open-world game if Yasuda gets his wish. 

"We're releasing Nioh 2 Complete Edition on PS5, so we've had time to work with the newest hardware," Yasuda says, "and after getting a chance to develop a title for the newest hardware we're seeing the improvements with the SSD and just how much faster the load times are on the newest hardware. I would like to try and take on an open-world style game in the future. So that's definitely something that I think this new hardware will give us the ability to try out."

Earlier this year, Yasuda confirmed that Team Ninja has several new projects to announce this year, but didn't specify what or how big they might be. With this update, Nioh 3 is officially out, but Yasuda did tell The Gamer to "look forward to some potential news for some kind of announcement" related to Ninja Gaiden in the near future. In the same breath, he stressed that Team Ninja has "nothing to announce or note specifically this time," so the odds of Ninja Gaiden getting a full-fat sequel or perhaps a reboot are still slim, but the series may factor into the studio's 2021 agenda. 

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