Nioh 3 Preview
For fans of Soulslikes and action RPGS, this past week has been like Christmas in June. First, an unexpected Alpha demo of Team Ninja’s Nioh 3 shadow dropped, followed by the highly-anticipated DLC for Lies of P. Whew. Talk about a windfall. We’ll cover Lies of P’s Overture DLC a little later.
Not Surprising and Very Surprising
Team Ninja has been a busy studio, releasing action-RPGs at a surprisingly rapid clip. Most recently, Rise of the Ronin and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty hit the shelves. Both games had some strengths — like Wo Long’s brutal Souslike combat and bosses — and weaknesses, like Ronin’s bland open world. Still, for genre fans, both games offered plenty of fun.
The Nioh franchise has been at a whole different level for Soulslike players. In particular, Nioh 2 remains as one of the best and most satisfying iterations on FromSoftware’s playbook. It’s also a rare example where a sequel is better than the first game. Everyone knew that Nioh 3 was in the works, but no one expected a very generous and generally well-polished Alpha demo this soon.
Familiar Ingredients, New Recipe
We can’t go too deeply into the story, for the obvious reason that the Alpha demo build only gives us sketches of it. The player is a warrior with the potential to become a powerful leader. It’s enough to crank the action into gear. Whether or not Nioh 3’s narrative references the early games or their characters remains a mystery.
Borrowing from Rise of the Ronin, Nioh 3 is somewhere between a fully open world and a more linear game. The discrete areas are immense, and just the demo is probably bigger —Â in terms of explorable areas — than the entire first game. There’s a main story quest and lots of side quests, plus of course the option to endlessly grind enemies out in the world and level up.
Nioh 3 adds several new wrinkles to its already excellent, very fast combat. The biggest game-changer is the ability to instantly shift from Ninja to Samurai styles. Samurai is similar to the prior games, favoring a more deliberate pace and the ability to regain stamina via the Ki Pulse mechanic. Ninja style is all about speed and attacks with claws and other fast weapons. Ninja style uses less stamina, but there’s no Ki Pulse regain system. Instead, there’s a mechanic called Mist which assists in impossible-to-hit dodges.
Ouch!
Overall, combat in Nioh 3 feels different enough to need some time and practice, not unexpected in a demanding Soulslike. And demanding is a mild term, because Nioh 3 can be brutally difficult. Fighting multiple enemies almost never goes well. Nioh’s PvP/Co-op system returns, where players earn an item for calling in assistance by besting the ghostly version of other players, not unlike Elden Ring’s rewards for defeating invaders.
If there’s one slightly disappointing element to the Alpha demo, it’s that Nioh 3 looks essentially the same as Nioh 2. Perhaps graphical upgrades are yet to come before the game’s 2026 release, but Nioh’s trademark soft-focus art style hasn’t changed. Wo Long looked much better.
Generally speaking, though, Nioh 3 looks to be exactly what most fans were hoping for: fast and challenging action with some unique mechanics and a historically grounded setting, albeit with lots of yokai monsters. The Alpha is only available on PS5 for a limited time through June 18th, so fans need to act quickly to check it out.
***PS5 Alpha is available now for free***
