Nioh 3 Studio Head Acknowledges it is a “Great Game, But it’s Not Perfect”

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I’ve been loving Nioh 3, and it’s clearly been a success for Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo! But in a recent interview, the producer, Fumihiko Yasuda, admitted that even though it’s a fantastic game, it’s not flawless. He says there’s still a lot of room for improvement, which is cool to hear – it shows they’re committed to making things even better!

According to Yasuda, while Nioh 3 is a good game, there’s still room for improvement. The team learned a lot during its development, especially regarding open-world features, and they hope to use that experience to make even better games in the future.

Later in the interview, Yasuda talked about potential improvements for a future Nioh game. He specifically mentioned wanting to enhance the storytelling, both in terms of the overall narrative and how the game’s environments tell the story. While he believes the game already does a good job of creating an immersive world, the team wants to delve deeper into the lore of the yokai. Ultimately, Yasuda wants the Nioh series to be more than just a game about traveling to different locations to defeat yokai and collect items; he wants richer storytelling.

We did a good job creating a detailed and engaging game world, but we could have done more to tell a richer story about it. We also have room to improve the art style and make it more unique. Specifically, we could have better explained the reasons behind the creatures and environments – why they are where they are and why they look the way they do. We feel we could have conveyed that information much more effectively.

The game isn’t simply about fighting monsters and collecting items. We realized the story could be richer, and we’ve seen other games do a great job of creating a more immersive experience. We definitely want to focus on expanding the narrative in future installments.

Producer Kohei Shibata admits the game could have featured a wider range of enemies. The team attempted to include both new creatures inspired by Japanese folklore and familiar monsters from past Nioh games, but they acknowledge players have pointed out a lack of variety and are taking that feedback to heart.

I’ve seen some people talking about the designs, and honestly, I get where they’re coming from. But what the team explained really makes sense to me. They were inspired by yokai, which are creatures from Japanese folklore that have been around forever – even before animals or people! They wanted to really lean into that ancient, ‘these creatures were here first’ feeling. Plus, they brought back some enemies from older games, but they’ve worked hard to make each fight feel different and avoid things getting repetitive. It’s cool to see them respecting the folklore while also trying to make the gameplay fresh.

We’ve received feedback that the content could have used more variety, and we understand that criticism. We’re hoping to address this in future releases and are exploring ways to improve and offer a more diverse experience.

Nioh 3 is now available on both PC and PlayStation 5. You can read our full review for more information, and we’ve also compared it to FromSoftware’s Elden Ring if you’re curious how the two games measure up.

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2026-03-06 18:11