Nioh 3 Announced | State of Play 2025

Wait I thought they said that they didn't want to continue the franchise for a while?

Glad it's coming back and Day1 on PC as well, no more exclusivity bs. Will pre-order as soon as I can.
 
Playing the demo and noped out for now. Well, it's Nioh...with MORE stuff and systems. The amount of word vomit, menus and tutorials instantly made me check out for the night. I'll investigate another time.

It's what you expect so far. Nioh template with stuff from their last few games on top. Jump button is in now etc.
 
Looks like Kusarigama, Talons, and Dual Swords are relegated to Low Stance in the Ninja Form. So is the Ninjutsu and very likely Omnyo Magic. Seems kind of limiting relative to Nioh 2.
 
I am suprised at the negativity, I liked Nioh 1 and 2, it beens a while since the last game, and now I am getting more Nioh and a day 1 pc release even. No complain here.
 
I don't think I've finished the first two games even tho I greatly enjoy them up to a certain point. Still tho, looking forward to this. Always enjoyed the souls like gameplay with diablo style loot.
 
i hope they allow us to transfer our character from nioh 2 to nioh 3, because in the end our character literally immortal at the end of nioh 2
 
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Looks like Kusarigama, Talons, and Dual Swords are relegated to Low Stance in the Ninja Form. So is the Ninjutsu and very likely Omnyo Magic. Seems kind of limiting relative to Nioh 2.
Yea it seems they dialed back a lot of the options you had in Nioh 2. Most interesting to me is going back to a specific protagonist instead of Create-a-character.

Regardless, this is a get for me on day 1, glad it's coming to PC immediately and I don't have the Sony wait™ to deal with.
 
Demo is insanely good from what I have played. Definitely an improvement on Nioh 1 & 2. Feels really good as an open world…the chapter select and menus from the first two added to the overwhelming amount of stuff on offer.
 
Fuck I still need to beat Nioh 2 atleast 5 or 6 more times or I won't get the full experience. (still haven't even beat it the first time around)
 
Yea it seems they dialed back a lot of the options you had in Nioh 2. Most interesting to me is going back to a specific protagonist instead of Create-a-character.

Regardless, this is a get for me on day 1, glad it's coming to PC immediately and I don't have the Sony wait™ to deal with.
I think the tonfa will likely suffer the same fate as those listed, OP tonfa builds be damned. I still don't get what utility Mist in Ninja Form has in place of Ki Pulse. Invincibility seems too immediate and brief to be useful. I am also seeing a lot of gear and skill tree nodes from previous Nioh, which took forever to improve.

P.S. On the plus side stamina is more abundant and ninja tools replenish when you style with Ninja Form or slowly over time.
 
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I think the tonfa will likely suffer the same fate as those listed, OP tonfa builds be damned. I still don't get what utility Mist in Ninja Form has in place of Ki Pulse. Invincibility seems too immediate and brief to be useful. I am also seeing a lot of gear and skill tree nodes from previous Nioh, which took forever to improve.

P.S. On the plus side stamina is more abundant and ninja tools replenish when you style with Ninja Form or slowly over time.
Thanks for the details, my PS5 isn't working currently so I can't try the demo.
 
Is it just me or are the controls a little stiff. I played a ton of NiOh 2, but it's been a while since I played it. They need to loosen the controls, like spin on a dime type of speed. Transforming into the Ninja is pretty cool. Still playing but it's pretty good so far.

Definitely going to get this. Loot mania, slaughtering yokai, and bosses galore.
 
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Played the demo for a bit. It's pretty good, at its core it basically feels like "more Nioh", but the open world design is a welcome addition IMO and makes it feel distinct from the 2 previous games (I always thought the levels were the weakest part of the series). The Ninja transformation stuff feels a bit dumb in concept and gimmicky in gameplay, but maybe my opinion will change once I spend more time with it and unlock more skills. Based on my short experience with it though, I have to say I preferred the Yokai abilities of 2.

It's ugly as fuck though, but I guess that's to be expected with Team Ninja.

Yea it seems they dialed back a lot of the options you had in Nioh 2. Most interesting to me is going back to a specific protagonist instead of Create-a-character.

Regardless, this is a get for me on day 1, glad it's coming to PC immediately and I don't have the Sony wait™ to deal with.

You still create a character. The demo has the customization options disabled but you can choose from a few presets.
(it does the body type A/B thing, in case anyone cares)

How is the visual and performance ?

Played on base Ps5 in performance mode
It's undeniably a Team Ninja game...by which I mean it looks like it could be a remaster of a Ps3 game and somehow it runs poorly too (lots of performance drops during traversal).
 
May actually play this one for more than 10 hours. Being open is nice for me. But those visuals in '26 will be rough to swallow.
 
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Wait I thought they said that they didn't want to continue the franchise for a while?
whoops-gangsofnewyork.gif
 
I am terrible with Nioh 2, couldn't defeat the first stage boss(Mezuki) after trying for a very long time and gave up. When Rise of the Ronin was released, I was on the back foot to buy it because of the difficulty. Tried the demo, got frustrated and then after I dropped the difficulty to easy, had a blast as it was so much manageable. Bought the full game and had so much fun with it. My only request is that they add difficulty options.

Some might say get good or whatever, but having more difficulty options doesn't take away from the normal mode they make.
 
Could never git gud with nioh 1, but really enjoying the demo, playing 90% of the time with ninja. Much prefer dodging to parrying.
 
combat system seemlike a mix of rise of ronin and nioh, with jumping mechanic and ki pulse/ counter burst, also i love how they make ninjutsu in this game, it still has limited cast number like old game, but it will recover bit by bit of your number as you attack enemy, i hope they will scale it better in this game, as ninjutsu in old game really lost its effective once you come to "xxx of demon" game circle
 
I spent about 300 hours on Nioh 1, doing all the difficulty levels, a bit of the Abyss, got quite burned out, so I still need to check out Nioh 2.

Happy to see that the franchise is still going on, I'm sure I'll get to 3 in a few years.
 
I havent tried to ps5 demo yet. How was it for those who already tested the demo of N3?
 
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I can't forget that I hit a hard fun wall with Nioh 1 after the story and never played it again. An early DLC sucked the fun out of it and NG+ just wasn't doing it for me.

I might pick this up on sale in a few years. I could always play 2 in the meantime.

Question for the 2 fans:
Does it limit drops in the way 1 did? For example I was enjoying tonfa then for whatever reason I didn't get a single tonfa for so long that I had to swap to another weapon style because the damage dropped off so much.
 
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I havent tried to ps5 demo yet. How was it for those who already tested the demo of N3?

Mix of rise of ronin and nioh 2 gameolay, there are 2 mode in game samurai and ninja m9, samurai can purified yokai puked and rely heqvy on block attack, mean while ninja is dodge and has godlike speed, samurai work like normal nioh game with 3 stance but you have to unlock low and high stance with your skill point, ninja now has useable item recover per attack, the faster you attack, the quicker it recover

Side note: ninja cannot purified and both of these mode run on different gear set, so far only range weapon is sharing
 
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Happy for those who love this series and finally getting a third entry. It probably did good for the team wanting to take a break while they tried new things before they returned here with their creative juices flowing. It does look cool, and I know I'll have to play Nioh 1 properly at some point. Do enjoy this genre of games so I know it's a must.
 
Played the demo last night, and yeah! It's Nioh allright. I love these games, and i'm very happy to see it coming to PC day one.
Will probably play the demo for a few hours more, then just wait for the full game next year.
 
I have extreme open world fatigue at the moment. I tried to get back into Elden ring and I just cant do it. This will probably feel the same..
 

Watched most of this video. It looks good, but I'm still not sold on giving up visual armor customization in the name of that samruai/ninja switch ability. In addition, the "open world" doesn't seem to add literally anything to the game. The game still railroads you into specific paths for story missions, and otherwise it's just "run for a while" followed by "enemy camp", then repeat. Also it felt like there were way too many shrines.

I realize that this is the 'starter area', and I still plan on getting it day 1, but I'm kinda confused by those design decisions by the devs. Not once when I was playing Nioh1/2 did I think, "Man I wish this game was open world."
 
Man, i know its ALPHA demo, but performance on base PS5 is rough, geez

Hope there is more classes and not only samurai/ninja
 
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Not once when I was playing Nioh1/2 did I think, "Man I wish this game was open world."
They're building off of what they did with Rise of the Ronin. Probably using most of the same bones from that game, putting in the Nioh 2 content, then adding on top with new systems. Similar development style to From Software. They get stuff out quickly, but it's usually building off what they've already done. I'm willing to give a more open layout a shot. Even the biggest Nioh fans never said it had great level design, so might as well try something new there but keep the phenomenal combat.
 
I really enjoyed Nioh 2 even though I was shit at it lol. Hopefully the open-world part is a bait and switch, no interest in wasting my time with padding
 
somehow the death blow punish isn't as satisfying as NiOh 2's. I get it, come out in a different weapon. They also locked stances behind skill points. Nothing terrible. I played the Alpha for an hour. I was wanting more of the game, so it's going to be a ton of fun. The open world-ish exploration could be good unless they copy/paste everything. Enemies look awesome.
 
Really enjoying the combat additions. Some of the controls are simplified, in a good way. Parrying feels amazing. This will probably be my favorite combat system in a game

Performance is rough tho. Fuck Katana engine. If Team Ninja ever moved to a decent game engine, they would be considered a top tier developer. I would happily wait an extra year or two for Nioh 3 if they did that. It's very frustrating. I'm buying day 1 regardless
 
It's crazy how Team Ninja turned it around. I really thought they were cooked after oatmeal cookie man left.

-Nioh 1 is a banger
- Nioh 2 is a classic
- Stranger of Paradise is a banger and takes a steaming shit on FFXVI
- Rise of Ronin is a banger
- NGB2 is a banger

Now you have this and Ninja Gaiden 4 in the works. Just make a good DOA game and they are officially a top tier studio again like back in the Xbox days.
 
Oh, they upgraded their engine. The games now don´t look like late PS3 anymore but almost like early PS4.
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I love the NiOh games and I will pour way too many hours in this installment, too, but holy shit is Team Ninja`s tech still crap.
 
Big fan of nioh 1 and 2, will definitely try out the demo. I did like nioh 1 and 2's level structure but always felt like it would go open world after rise of ronin. Glad nioh is back though, wasn't long ago I was asking for this on here.
 
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