Team Ninja's Most Successful Ninja Action and a New Peak for the Series — Press on Nioh 3
The release of Nioh 3, the new game from Team Ninja, is just a couple of days away. Judging by the first reviews, the developers have gotten almost everything right, which is why the sequel is often hailed as one of the studio's best action games.
At the time of this article's publication, Nioh 3 has the following scores — 86 points on Metacritic (PS5 version; it has more reviews) and 87 points on OpenCritic (the project is recommended by 96% of reviewers).
The sequel is praised for its hardcore and enjoyable combat, two outstanding fighting styles, a rich set of locations, an excellent soundtrack, freedom for build-crafting, and open zones that skillfully break up the linear levels.
"While the game remains a delightfully challenging action title, especially with its new 'Ninja' style, perhaps what impressed me most was its rewarding approach to exploration," wrote Game Informer journalist Marcus Stewart.
But there are also things to criticize. The downsides include a mediocre story, unclear explanations of some mechanics, a number of design decisions from the PS3 era, and occasional performance issues like stuttering and frame rate drops (though the situation is better on consoles).
Below are conclusions from several reviews published so far.
GamesRadar+ — 90/100
This is a triumphant step forward for the series in the eyes of fans and — though not an easy one — the perfect entry point for newcomers. Nioh 3 demands endurance, tactics, and patience from the player, rewarding them with an incredible sense of satisfaction from completing a tough yet irresistible adventure.
VGC — 80/100
Nioh 3 is the quintessence of Team Ninja's decade-long experience. It offers the player refined and diverse action, equally thoughtful levels, and overall — a magnificent adventure. The story presentation could be better, but in terms of pure action, the game is flawless.
RPGamer — 70/100
Nioh 3 suffers from its own scale. The game world is too large, and there is clearly not enough unique content to fill it. If the series has decided to go down the open-world path, the balance between scale and substance is clearly off. The game would definitely have benefited from dropping one historical period in favor of more variety in yokai and quests. Such an ambitious project required more development time — the optimization issues and feeling of repetitiveness speak volumes about that.
That said, Nioh 3 retains the main thing: its battles are still fierce, ruthless, and fast-paced. And they are superbly driven by the soundtrack. The story and world are generally well-constructed. Just don't expect perfection on all fronts from the game.
Nioh 3 launches on February 6th for PC (Steam) and PlayStation 5 with Russian text translation. A demo version is available on both platforms.