is a 2017 action role-playing game developed by Team Ninja and Kou Shibusawa and published by Koei Tecmo for the PlayStation 4. Sony Interactive Entertainment published the game outside Japan on PlayStation consoles. Nioh 2, a prequel to Nioh was released on PlayStation 4 in March 12, 2020. A port to Windows including all downloadable content was released the same year while a remastered version was released for PlayStation 5 on 5 February 2021.
Based on a fictionalized history of Japan and featuring both real-life albeit heavily-altered historical figures, and supernatural elements, the game takes during the year 1600 and follows William Adams, a rare samurai foreigner who pursues the sorcerer Edward Kelley while fighting a variety of yōkai creatures into the final battles of the Sengoku period, during Tokugawa Ieyasu's efforts to unify Japan. The gameplay revolves around navigating levels and defeating yōkai that have infested an area; combat revolves around stamina or "Ki" management and different sword stances that are strong or weak against different enemies.
Nioh began development in 2004 for PlayStation 3 as part of a multimedia project based on an unfinished Akira Kurosawa script. The project went through a turbulent and prolonged pre-production period, going through multiple revisions until its final version began development in 2014 for PlayStation 4. Development information was sporadic until 2015, when it was reintroduced to the public.
Alpha and beta demos were released during 2016, to both gauge public reaction to the title and make adjustments based on feedback. Initially scheduled for a 2016 release, the adjustments pushed the release into the following year. Upon release, Nioh received positive reviews, with praise going to the gameplay and graphics while the story was criticized as lacking or confusing. It reached high positions in sales charts, going on to ship over 3 million copies worldwide. Nioh received two sequels, Nioh 2 (2020), and Nioh 3 (2026).
Gameplay
Nioh is an action role-playing game set in Japan during the year 1600, with players taking the role of an Irish samurai named William. The player guides William on missions through enclosed environments fighting both human enemies and supernatural beings called yokai: missions are self-contained, hold alternate routes William can navigate, and selected from a menu rather than reached by navigating an open world. While navigating environments, William can find various collectables both in crates scattered through the environment and in other places within the environments such as fallen soldiers. These collectibles include Amrita, the game's experience points (EXP); gold, the in-game currency; weapons and armor, and consumable items such as bombs. Weapons and armor found in the environment can be taken to a blacksmith, who are able to buy it from William or can break it down into base material. Shrines scattered through levels act as checkpoints, allowing players to save progress, replenish health and raise William's experience level through accrued EXP: doing this respawns all normal enemies within an area. Skill points acquired in combat are assigned at shrines.
Fighting is fast-paced hack and slash combat (similar to previous Team Ninja works), with William being able to attack enemies and block their attacks in turn. William can run, dodge, and sprint with these and combat actions draining his Ki stamina bar. When his Ki has been depleted, William is left vulnerable to attack. If timed right, William is able to replenish lost Ki with an action called "Ki pulse". The Ki pulse grants status buffs onto William, and dispels patches of miasma generated by yokai and other supernatural enemies which rapidly saps Ki. Defeated enemies drop loot, which includes money and weapons. The speed at which William can move through levels depends on the weight of his equipped armor; the heavier it is, the faster his Ki will drain. If William dies, all the EXP acquired up to that point is left where he fell, and he must travel back to retrieve it, but if he dies again and therefore failing to reach it, the amount of EXP dropped is lost and the spirit animal is automatically recovered.
William has access to multiple types of melee weapons: these include single and dual swords, axes, polearms and kusarigama. In addition to melee weapons, William has access to ranged weapons such as a bow, a rifle, and a hand cannon. The more each weapon is used, the stronger and more effective it becomes. In combat, William can change between three Stances with melee weapons, with each stance having different effects; High Stance causes higher damage while lowering defense, Low Stance allows for quick attacks and better defense, while Middle Stance balances elements of the other two Stances. These Stances consume different amounts of Ki depending on their attack strength. William can summon Guardian Spirits, animals that combine his health and Ki into a single meter with added stat boosts such as increasing attack power or defense. Each Guardian Spirit boosts different stats, and can only be switched out at shrines. Guardian Spirits are lost when William dies, but they can be summoned to him at a shrine at the cost of his lost EXP. In addition to normal enemies, William can summon Revenants, hostile ghosts based on other fallen players, to battle and gain experience, money and items. A cooperative multiplayer allows for other players to be summoned to help in battles.
William's character growth is governed by EXP. Some statistical points can be assigned to William's character following the game's opening mission, and during the main game, stat points can be assigned to William's attributes, which range from increased physical strength to heightened speed. Stat points are split between three skill trees: "Samurai" for weapon skill trees for standard melee combat, "Ninja" for distance weapons such as shurikens and poisons, and "Onmyo" which link to the creation of talismans, consumable items that grant temporary stat boosts. If William finds and guides Kodama to the Shrines within each mission, he can purchase otherwise inaccessible bonus material such as items and weapons. Offerings of items can be made at the shrine in exchange for EXP. Additional buffs can be granted using Prestige Points, which are acquired by fulfilling certain tasks within levels such as dealing a certain amount of damage or killing a number of enemies with one weapon type.
Synopsis Setting and characters Nioh is set in 1600 within a fictionalized dark fantasy version of the late Sengoku period, a time when the clans of Japan were at war prior to the unification under the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Edo period. Amidst the fighting and high death toll, yōkai have appeared and begun wreaking havoc across the land: major yōkai threats that appear in the game include Hinoenma, Jorōgumo, and a Yuki-onna born from the spirit of the wife of Oda Nobunaga following the Honnō-ji incident.
The game's main protagonist is William Adams (Ben Peel), a blond-haired Irishman who arrives in Japan in pursuit of an enemy. He crosses paths with Tokugawa Ieyasu (Masachika Ichimura) and his ninja servant Hattori Hanzō (Toshiyuki Morikawa), forming an alliance against both William's enemy and the yōkai infesting Japan. William is trained in combat by Yagyū Munetoshi, Hōzōin In'ei and Marume Nagayoshi. The main antagonist is Edward Kelley (Hiroyuki Kinoshita/Nicholas Boulton), a Westerner driving the conflict using his dark alchemical abilities under the order of John Dee (Timothy Watson), chief advisor to Queen Elizabeth I.
William crosses paths with numerous historical figures from the period: these include Ieyasu's allies Ii Naomasa (Jun Fukuyama) and Honda Tadakatsu (Tesshō Genda); daimyo Kuroda Yoshitaka (Yōhei Tadano) and his son Kuroda Nagamasa (Hiroshi Tsuchida); Ieyasu's main rival Ishida Mitsunari (Takahiro Sakurai) and his allies Shima Sakon (Keiji Fujiwara) and Ōtani Yoshitsugu (Kenyuu Horiuchi); Tachibana Ginchiyo (Shizuka Itō), head of the Tachibana clan, and her husband Muneshige (Eiji Hanawa); hostile mercenary Suzuki Magoichi (Yasuyuki Kase); Yasuke (Richie Campbell), a former favored vassal of Nobunaga; the Date clan including Date Masamune, Date Shigezane and Katakura Shigenaga; Sanada Yukimura, Sarutobi Sasuke and the Sanada Ten Braves; and Tenkai (Takayuki Sugō), a monk of the Tendai Buddhist sect and master manipulator of yin and yang magic. Original characters include Okatsu (Emi Takei), a female ninja in Hanzō's clan who holds a dislike and curiosity for William; and Fuku (Risa Shimizu), Tenkai's disciple.
Plot The game opens with a narration by William describing Amrita, a mystical golden stone found in abundance in Japan that is sought by the government of Queen Elizabeth I to secure victory over Spain in the Anglo-Spanish War. William was one of those contracted by the queen to obtain Amrita, but afterward was imprisoned to keep the Amrita a secret. Held in the Tower of London in 1598, William breaks out with the help of his Spirit Guardian Saoirse, a water spirit born from the prayers of his village who saved him from death when he was a boy and prevents him from dying. William is confronted by Edward Kelley, who seeks Japan's Amrita. After trying to kill William, Kelley uses his Ouroboros spirit to steal Saoirse and transports himself to Japan with William in pursuit. Landing in Japan in 1600, he fights Oni that are ravaging the area, receiving aid from Hanzo Hattori to help find Kelley in exchange for fighting Oni. On one of his first missions, William is joined by a Nekomata, who tells him that the delicate balance between good and evil spirits has been disrupted by the past century of war in Japan. Possession by Nekomata allows him to understand Japanese.
William's work against the yōkai and saving key figures earns him Ieyasu's favour, while Mitsunari and his supporters align themselves with Kelley, in hopes that Mitsunari can create a land not wholly ruled by the strong. William, however, soon learns from Okatsu that Ieyasu sacrificed many of his family in a ruthless bid for power, with Okatsu being one of Ieyasu's illegitimate daughters who escaped by becoming a kunoichi. Kelley continues to plague William, including impersonating Tachibana Muneshige in an attempt to undermine Muneshige's wife Ginchiyo and resurrecting Oda Nobunaga's wife Princess Nō, as a yukionna. Kelley later drains an Amrita seal keeping evil spirits from ravaging Kyoto, with William barely stopping the spirits with help from Tenkai, his apprentice Fuku and the Nekomata, who sacrifices itself to give the others time to restore the seal. A later encounter sees William saving Okatsu from Kelley's control, then escaping with her when Ieyasu arrives and Kelley attacks, though William is initially disturbed that Ieyasu is willing to let Okatsu die. But upon realizing that Ieyasu is secretly pained by his ruthless decisions and sacrifices, William ultimately chooses to continue aiding him.