Ryan McCaffrey
Guest
Nioh 3, the newest entry in the Warring States Period Soulslike series, is the first to use open field maps. Unlike the previous mission-based titles, Nioh 3 sets players free in an open space, allowing you to take on areas, enemies, quests and more as you please.
So, how exactly are the game's open fields constructed? We asked the developers about the density players can expect from the map, interesting techniques they used during development, and the struggles they faced along the way. General Producer Fumihiko Yasuda and Producer Kohei Shibata tell us about the development philosophy that lies at the core of the Nioh series, like the difference between a brutally difficult game being "unreasonable" and being "stressful."
Drawing on Team Ninja's experience to create dense yet free open fields
IGN: Did you run into any challenges when creating this game's open fields?
Fumihiko Yasuda: When we tried to create open fields early on in development, we found they had lost the kind of density you'd expect from the Nioh series. While we did have some experience from creating Rise of the Ronin at the same time, the goal of that game was to depict the Bakumatsu period. The Nioh series is different in that it's a game about overcoming a world that's crawling with enemies.
We went through a lot of trial and error in an attempt to create dense yet free open fields. One time we tried a bottom-up approach to development by starting with Nioh's traditional stage-based maps and expanding them from there, but those ended up feeling a little suffocating. We spent a lot of time dividing up the pace and creating the backgrounds of the maps, such as dividing them into open areas and more difficult bottlenecks.
How did your previous experience influence this part of Nioh 3’s development?
Yasuda: That's something we're conscious of as we make games. Development generally takes three to four years, and Team Ninja puts out a game basically every year, so we share the knowledge we've gained from releasing those titles within our teams and across projects. I hope we use the experience we acquire from making Nioh 3 in future titles as well.
When I looked at the open field, it felt like a map that had multiple proper routes that I could take. There were places where I could fall to my death, though. I imagine that must have been difficult to design.
Kohei Shibata: We've made it so that it's easy to look at a place and know that you'll die if you go there. Take a cliff, for example. If we made it look too realistic, it would have protrusions and rocks all around, making players feel like they can climb up it. We've done everything we can to remove sections like that.
We've also made it as clear as we can when there are multiple routes available to the player. Crucibles and Lesser Crucibles will have clearly ominous auras around them. You'll also be able to see what areas are full of wandering enemies, giving the player the option of where to go. I do think that the fun of finding your own route has been a part of Nioh, even when it was stage-based, so we're using that experience as well to put together our maps.
"We've given players the ability to jump for the first time in the series, allowing them to move vertically onto roofs and adding variety to how they can play through the game."
Yasuda: Until now, Nioh players instantly knew where they couldn't go because there was no jump. But with this game, we've given players the ability to jump for the first time in the series, allowing them to move vertically onto roofs and adding variety to how they can play through the game. It is possible to mislead players about whether or not they can go somewhere, though, which is something our map designers had to be conscious of as they worked.
One approach that's often used is to guide the player's eyes by covering objects in yellow paint. I didn't see any of that in this game, so tweaking everything to work must have been difficult.
Yasuda: Who knows, the game's map might be bright yellow by the time it launches (laughs). Yes, the yellow paint problem is a difficult one. In a 2D game, players will notice things without needing to guide their eyes too much, but I can understand the desire of game designers to use yellow paint once you have a realistic 3D game.
Could you tell us once more about out-of-combat activities and collection elements in the game from the perspective of open-field density?
Shibata: We wanted to come up with elements that are trademarks of the Nioh series, and that's where we added a number of activities involving yokai. These did exist before in the series as well, but you'll be able to chase a Scampuss (a cat-like yokai) around or search for Kodama.
Yasuda: The world of the Nioh series is one where evil yokai have devastated a world during an age of war. That's the kind of place you're crossing, so you won't find many peaceful towns there, even in an open-field game. That said, comical yokai do exist in addition to cruel ones, and we've used those as contrasts to give players a moment to decompress.
Shibata: The game has side quests known as Myths. Hell exists in this world that's been overrun by yokai, and not many humans have been able to survive. The spirits of those who've passed away might ask you for help, beginning a side quest. Completing these will allow you to get a glimpse at the game's backstory.
Yasuda: Early in development, we did have quests you could receive from living humans, since the game took place on an open field. While you do of course accept quests from major characters who are still alive, generally speaking, side quests now start with the spirits of the dead. This was something we decided on based on our focus on narrative, and it seems like a natural path for the series to take.
Is there text that will teach players overseas more about Japanese culture as they play the game?
Yasuda: History has always been a motif in the Nioh series, and so we've prepared a dictionary of yokai and people. It's something we created so that players in the West can understand the games as well. There were so many characters in Rise of the Ronin, and we found ourselves feeling that there were a lot of people overseas who don't know about the Bakumatsu period. When it comes to lore, flavor text and more about historical figures and yokai, Nioh 3 has even more of it than previous games in the series.
"History has always been a motif in the Nioh series, and so we've prepared a dictionary of yokai and people."
Shibata: This dictionary will get updated as you progress through the story. Also, as you explore the field you'll see places that become frozen due to the influence of Crucibles, changing the mood depending on the field. History and fiction are combined and depicted according to the Nioh way of interpreting them.
The difference between "unreasonable" and "stressful"
We've seen a lot of brutally difficult titles in the games industry as of late, but it seems to me that the trend lately has been to think about offering options for a wider audience, such as by adding selectable difficulty. What's your approach to difficulty in this game?
Yasuda: I think there are a lot of ways to define the Soulslike genre. Players can of course learn and get better at the action in the Nioh series, but the games are also full of RPG elements. They can increase their level, gather equipment, and create specialized builds. Compatibility and player taste also play a role when it comes to individual bosses. There are even online elements to the game, and making use of all of these to overcome a difficult moment and feel accomplished is something common to all the games in the series. We want Nioh 3 to be no exception.
While selectable difficulty is a part of some of the other games that I've made, Nioh 3 continues to only have one difficulty setting. There are so many ways to make it through the game, to the point where I might even worry that we overdid it this time around. We've been very conscious of not making the game unreasonably difficult.
If we did include selectable difficulty, you might get situations where someone says, "I beat Nioh," only to be a bit bothered when others show up to say "What, on easy?" That isn't a desirable outcome, so we want there to be the same value to beating Nioh no matter how you did it. It's something that's been important to us throughout the series, and that includes this game.
I have seen players argue over other games in the genre that did include selectable difficulty. I take those discussions into account as I make games, and I do think that selectable difficulty is a valid approach to take in games. Though I keep an eye on how players and the media react, we won't be taking the route of adding selectable difficulty to Nioh 3.
There was one boss on the open field that I struggled against. I finally defeated it once I used the Living Artifact transformation skill, though. There are really so many ways to approach the game.
Yasuda: That is something we're trying to do. Nioh games until now have had a linear map design, and I think that ended up requiring players to simply grind out levels if they got stuck on a boss. While there are some linear maps in this game, it has open fields, meaning that you can take other routes if you think an area is too difficult to take on. By defeating bosses elsewhere and leveling up, you can grow stronger without having to do the same thing over and over. We've taken a step forward in that regard by having a wider variety of ways to beat the game. There are of course challenging moments awaiting players, though. Just because you've explored doesn't mean the game will be easy, and there's still plenty of toughness there.
I know that open fields and open worlds have become the standard in lots of games now, but making Nioh into an open-field game is a major change in the gameplay experience. We saw so many users taking a wide variety of approaches even in the alpha demo, and we want them to enjoy that in the full game as well.
It sounds like you took on a tough challenge there.
Yasuda: Yes, it has worked out well in some ways that we intended. But every time we release a new Nioh game, I always feel like the players manage to exceed my imagination (laughs). I'll often think, "Wow, you can beat it like that?" While there are times when we have no choice but to make balance changes with updates, in general, we think that nothing is more valuable than the playstyles and strategies that players discover. Players who've put thousands of hours into the games have come up with strategies that we truly could have never imagined, and I'm looking forward to what those will be this time as well.
Shibata: There have even been times when something is so amazing that we decide to intentionally leave it untouched.
Yasuda: We now live in an age when players share their strategies for beating the game with one another, so there are times when specific unintended builds run rampant. As these are games that are fundamentally about creating builds to take you through the game, we of course don't want to have to nerf specific builds, and we're doing what we can to avoid that as we approach release.
There are often cases of bosses being too difficult and getting nerfed in high-difficulty games. What will your approach to post-release adjustments be?
Yasuda: In general, I don't want there to be any nerfs. I want everyone to share the experience of beating the game's bosses under the same rules and conditions. I don't want there to be conversations where people say, "You did that post-nerf, right?" Camerawork is one common issue, and there are times when it becomes unreasonable in ways that we didn't intend. We'll fix the camera if there are situations where people feel like they lost because of it, and there are even situations where we might choose to nerf a boss. Nioh 3 isn't out yet, though, so we of course have no plans to nerf anything at the moment. I'd say that the biggest determining factor is us wanting to avoid players feeling like they lost because the game was unreasonable.
You also used the word "unreasonable" when discussing your adjustment plans in the survey results for the alpha demo. Speaking as a developer, what would make something unreasonable to you?
Yasuda: When it comes to balance adjustments, I often talk to the development team about the difference between unreasonableness and stress. I don't think it's a bad thing for games to make players feel stressed. Nioh is designed to be a tough game that makes players think.
"Nioh is designed to be a tough game that makes players think."
Say there's a moment where players can dodge an attack with a slow animation. But if it was so instantaneous that you can't see the animation, players wouldn't be able to react. There's nothing unreasonable about an attack if you know it's coming based on an animation where the enemy is preparing for that attack. But I don't think it's good to demand that players avoid or otherwise deal with unpredictable attacks. Players also have resources like stamina (Ki) to worry about, and so we're removing that sort of unreasonableness whenever possible. I think that might be the most critical balance approach taken by the development team assigned to action.
Shibata: There was an enemy in the alpha demo known as the Crucible Wasp that players hated. Though this game has jumps that allow for mid-air action, the pre-fix Crucible Wasp was so high up that jumping attacks couldn't hit it. Performing a mid-air attack that still can't hit a target in flight will make players think that the game is at fault, not them. It's not fair, which is why we're making tweaks to make sure that players don't feel like they lost for any reason other than themselves.
Some players hate it when bosses in Soulslike games use feints, or delayed attacks. How do you feel about those?
Yasuda: Lately, Team Ninja has made parry-focused action games like Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. There are times when the development side uses those sorts of delays in these kinds of action games. Delays can be used in order to teach players about the quirks of an enemy's actions. That's why I'm not completely against delays. That said, I don't think it's good when enemies track you after a delayed attack, causing it to hit you even though you avoided it. That would probably count as unreasonable for me.
Yasuda: Delayed attacks with weapons that don't even seem particularly heavy will cause any sense of their weight to be lost as well. They'd simply be nasty. For example, a delayed attack with a heavy hammer seems like the right choice both in terms of visuals and action gameplay. I do think there are delayed attacks that aren't unreasonable.
It's not particularly difficult to create an intentionally difficult game, you know. But they need to not be unreasonable, and their animations need to be convincing as well. What's important is that players think that they're the ones who messed up if an enemy defeats them. You can make a game that people can't beat if that's what you really want, right? But nobody would enjoy a game like that, and I doubt anyone would want to go back and keep playing it.
Fans of the genre do like rating their bosses.
Yasuda: There is someone on the development team assigned to action who oversees boss creation. Like all of our people in charge, that person is on an emotional rollercoaster while seeing how people react to the game on message boards and social media.
The topic of Zhang Liang in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty's demo acting as a wall for players often comes up in the genre. Do you think Takeda Shingen will become a boss like that?
Yasuda: I'm not sure about that yet. You'll be able to face off against Takeda Shingen as a boss challenge at Tokyo Game Show 2025, but if the clear rate there is too low then we might adjust him to be weaker for release. He is the character who shows up at the end of a big chapter, so I doubt he'll ever be an easily defeated boss. A model of Takeda Shingen who's transformed into a yokai will be waiting for you all on the TGS floor.
Additional control methods and other improvements from the demo
I understand you're going to add a system to the options that allows you to use Burst Counter without a Style Shift. Why did you decide to do that? Is there a reason you're so insistent on being able to Style Shift using one button?
Yasuda: In Nioh 2, Burst Counter was performed with R2 and the circle button. I'd wanted to make it a one-button action ever since we created 2, like a lesson learned upon reflection. The decision had been made because there was a somewhat limited degree to the moments when enemies used major attacks in the previous games. I told the team that I wanted to make it a one-button action from early in development and had them experiment with it ever since then.
Shibata: We added it as an option because of requests from players who wanted to play only Samurai or Ninja Style without having to switch to the other. The biggest reason we made Burst Counter a one-button move was to maintain the tempo of the game's action. Nioh is a fast game, so having to change styles with a multi-button combination creates a problem where it inherently introduces a moment of delay. Being able to freely switch between the Styles with a single button is something we wanted to value a lot.
The demo I played today featured a Nioh 2-style control type that lets you Burst Counter with R2 and the circle button. So you added this based on player feedback?
Yasuda: That's absolutely right. It seems there were some people who preferred the controls of the previous title. We also added a weapon swapping feature like those found in the previous games due to what we heard from players. Some new elements that we added and consolidated into Nioh 3 turned out to actually create unfamiliarity for players who were accustomed to the series, and so we accommodated them based on the feedback we got.
I was unsure until the very last moment, but we ended up adding a proper weapon swapping system.
Are there any tweaks or fixes from the alpha demo that you'd like to highlight?
Shibata: Going back to weapon swapping, that is something we were hesitant about because we thought it might become too complex when combined with this game's switching between styles. But even with that switching, we did hear players saying that they wanted to swap weapons. As developers, we did know that there would be players who wanted to stick to one Style while switching between weapons. I was unsure until the very last moment, but we ended up adding a proper weapon swapping system.
As you saw in the alpha demo, players will unlock new elements in the game step by step. You don't start with three Samurai Style stances as you did before, unlocking them yourself instead. We wanted to have this gradual unlocking system so as to not confuse players new to the series or those returning to it after a long time away.
Yasuda: I often compare it to the difference between a manual and automatic transmission in a car. Demanding that first-timers to the Nioh series immediately use all the various actions that have come together until now seemed like it could be too much. As this is the third game in the series, it does seem like many alpha demo players were Nioh veterans, and it became clear to us that they expected the feeling of manual control they had experienced in previous games. We'll be developing a button configuration feature as well as a setting for simplified controls thanks to these realizations we got from players.
Please tell us about your personal feelings for the Nioh series.
Yasuda: Stepping back from the details about the games, the title of the original Nioh was actually announced a very long time ago. Even at the start, Nioh gave players the image of "two individuals as one," being the Japanese term for the two Benevolent Kings (powerful guardians of the Buddha), and the initial pitch for the game did mention it featuring both samurai and ninja. The idea would be to scale a castle as a ninja, then fight one-on-one as a samurai. In the end, though, we decided we needed to focus on the theme of fighting yokai as a samurai. At the end of the original Nioh, there's a moment where you're told that you are the true Nioh, which is to say that what William has done as a samurai together with Hanzo as a ninja is the embodiment of those two Benevolent Kings. So this theme of samurai and ninja has in fact always been foundational to these games. We were also sure to make the story of Nioh 2 about two individuals acting as one.
While I wasn't the one to propose the themes of Nioh 3, it does feel like we're calling back to those original themes now. Of course, I tell everyone that I've been talking about this from the start (laughs). So because of that as well, I hope that everyone will enjoy the action of both Samurai and Ninja Style, as well as making their characters. At the time, it was really hellish when the name of the game was the only thing set in stone. There was no meat at all to the game, but everyone knew its name (laughs).
Finally, do you have a message for IGN readers?
Shibata: We really did learn a lot from all of the alpha demo players and your feedback. We looked at many kinds of feedback, whether from commentary videos or on social media, and we're drawing on your thoughts while working to improve the game. You'll be able to try out a new stage in the TGS 2025 demo, and so we hope you look forward to future updates about the game.
Yasuda: There's been a bigger gap than before between the release of Nioh 3 and the previous game. In part because of that, our development has focused around challenging ourselves to add open fields and the Ninja Style. After taking a look at the reaction to the alpha demo, I feel like I know where we are now, and so does the team. We'll be working hard on the final adjustments to the game from here, and I hope everyone looks forward to its release.
Look out for more exclusive Nioh 3 coverage during this month's IGN First, including our exclusive boss battle video, exclusive new gameplay, our latest hands-on preview, and even more details about Ninja Style.
Yuichi Shigeta is a freelance writer for IGN Japan. This article was translated by Ko Ransom.