Yes and no.
There are 2 different leveling systems at play which feed in to each other. You gain experience from completing missions and tasks across the different regions, but you also gain something called karma from beating enemies.
Once you have enough karma, you can convert it to experience by resting at a banner. Experience can never be lost, but unconverted karma can be if an enemy defeats you. If that happens there's a revenge system, you have one chance to go back and beat the enemy who killed you, but if they kill you again that karma is lost forever.
Overall it's not too punishing, and there are also difficulty levels (I chose the highest one being the souls/nioh veteran that I am). There are also various things you can find and equip and skills you can gain through experience points that can/will make things easier dependant on your play style and weapon choice.
And big tip, select the Japanese VO, it's clearly the way the game was meant to be played, the English one is terrible.