Nioh 3 review – Team Ninja’s most accomplished action game, and the series’ most accessible

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 area” stage design. I’m very a lot over open-world video games, however I used to be significantly anxious that we had 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 fascinating concepts, and Ronin was no completely different, however it additionally squandered a lot of its potential on what ended up being the sport design equal of considering 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 wishes to enterprise past what the construction of these video games has allowed – although solely by itself phrases.

You’d be forgiven for considering that Nioh 3’s open world is its headline function. 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 determination to name it “open area” somewhat than “open world” is telling, and it comes throughout as a acutely aware present of restraint.

The world of Nioh 3 is a number of giant maps, every made up of smaller areas. A area is known as a bundle of the form of curated ranges present in each Nioh sport, simply with a number of routes of ingress and egress. This, after all, 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, present to subtly push you in the direction of the subsequent factor.

It’s a extra sensible, to-the-point strategy to that model of open-world design that eliminates the minutes-long treads via vacant landscapes so a lot of these video games simply can’t discover a good use for.

You surprisingly don’t get any form of mount to traverse Nioh 3’s world, although you do get a – typically comical – supersprint that kicks in once you hit the highway. I as soon as once more can’t assist however admire the restraint. For a mount to make sense, that useless area between fascinating bits of content material would must be far bigger, which, after all, gamers are promptly going to skip as son as quick journey is unlocked.

Nioh 3’s strategy provides another, and it asks for a little bit of belief in your half that it gained’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 flexibility to change between two fight types 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. Because of this, quite a lot of the Ninjutsu, throwables and a few Onmyo-like spells have moved to the Ninja, which is a technique Nioh 3 has made that a part of it extra accessible. Anybody accustomed to the sooner video games is aware of that these highly effective talents had been usually clunky to make use of within the warmth of battle.

Most of your time can be spent because the Samurai, however the freedom to change between the 2 on the press of a button offers you the motivation to discover how every of them might excel (or battle) 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 deliver ahead, which to evolve, and refining every part so it is smart inside the sport’s world.

Stranger of Paradise’s gear auto-equip function is right here, and a lot better carried out. It really works simply as you’d anticipate; automatically-equipping one of the best 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 may end up doing, relying on the standard of loot you get and the way bothered you’re about taking 10 minutes to type via two inventories. It even allows you to goal weight courses, so that you by no means should all of a sudden end up fat-rolling in the midst of a boss combat.

My favorite mechanic in Nioh 3 comes from Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, which stays one of many studio’s most fascinating experiments in current reminiscence. Elden Ring modified open-world sport design perpetually, 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 an alternative, nonetheless, was offer players a very compelling incentive to explore its world, that, crucially, wanted to exist in a sport with linear ranges. The system boiled all the way down to regularly rising gamers’ energy the extra elements of its ranges they discover.

Nioh 3’s world is way bigger by comparability, however Staff Ninja discovered a superb manner of evolving the function. Every area on the map is assigned an exploration ranking, which rises the extra of the varied actions you partake in. Your incentive to take action is two-fold. First, every stage you achieve boosts how informative the map itself turns into. It begins off clean, then grows to indicate a layer of roads and main cities, earlier than it marks down the placement of each collectible.

Climbing via these ranges additionally comes with a set of bonuses to fight, which apply to your character universally. In actual fact, there’s a mixed ranking that pushed me to max out every area to get the entire map’s bonus.

You can draw a line from every a type 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 actual win right here.

Nioh 3, after all, evolves its personal collection’ mechanics, recontextualising them in some situations. The Burst Counter is not tied to your alternative of Guardian Spirit, however is as an alternative assigned to the style-switching button. This achieves two objectives. One, it trains you to commonly flip between the 2 – a significant function of this sequel, however it additionally makes pulling off a Burst Counter simpler, which implies extra gamers are extra seemingly 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 strategy had all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer, Nioh 3’s as an alternative sands off some unnecessarily sharp edges to encourage gamers to have interaction 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 complicated methods that may take veterans a while to understand.

One side that has sadly not advanced is the sport’s narrative. The construction of the entire thing is the one fascinating half about it, and it nearly succeeds at distracting you from simply how underwhelming it’s.

It is 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/combat Figures You Know. It’s important 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 anticipate a lot from that aspect of the Nioh video games, however I used to be blissful to not less than have an thrilling wrapper. Splitting the marketing campaign into a number of eras can also be a pleasant and handy excuse to have a number of open-world maps, which is one other manner the trek via time stays recent.

Nioh 3 isn’t with out irritating moments. Bosses will nonetheless kill you in two hits; platforming guidelines will sometimes confuse you; and there’s loads of PS3-era stage design ethos Staff Ninja simply can’t appear to eliminate. The PC model runs fantastic, however I anticipate folks with the higher vary of GPUs to grumble about not having 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 troublesome to ask extra from Nioh 3. It’s a sport that proudly pronounces its objectives on the outset, and trusts the participant to find how effectively 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 method that’s solely outshone by Staff Ninja’s regular hand in crafting it.

Reviewed on PC, code supplied by writer.