After five hours, I can confirm that the Nioh 3 alpha was not a good representation of the game: the full thing is far better

I think Nioh 2 is a near-perfect game. Team Ninja, inspired by but never beholden to the Souls-like formula, has created a viable alternative to FromSoft's games with the Nioh series. Stance-based combat adds a fighting game twist, and the tight level design, commitment to historical Japanese settings, and more traditional storytelling methods allow the series to stand out from all the other contenders to the genre throne. If FromSoft is the emperor, Team Ninja is the shogun.
I think a common misconception about Nioh is that it's just "Dark Souls in Sengoku-era Japan," but that's doing the series a disservice. Taken on its own merits, it's so much more than that - less a Souls purebreed, and more of a genre mutt, made up of Tenchu, Ninja Gaiden, Onimusha, Devil May Cry, and even lashings of Metroidvania. Yes, Nioh has bonfires, stats-scaling, shortcuts baked into level design - and is punishing - but I think, really, that's where the similarities end.
The first game's solid foundations were built upon and galvanised in 2020 with the launch of Nioh 2. The best-in-class weapon-based combat was bolstered with demonic special moves, the admittedly small roster of enemies was greatly expanded, and various gimmicks were bolted onto the labyrinthine levels to make the game a constant surprise, and fascinating interpretation of the hardcore-RPG genre.
Nioh 3 is all that and more, basically. If Nioh 2 squared the series' base formula, Nioh 3 cubes it. For better and for worse: the threequel is denser, more complicated, and broader. That's mostly thanks to the fact you can have two complete builds on the go at any one time - a samurai and a ninja. And to play the game effectively, you need to swap between them on the fly. It reminds me, weirdly, of effectively chaining combos in Devil May Cry 3: use your samurai to poise-break your foe, swap to ninja on the fly, and then obliterate them with a flurry of attacks from your ninja. It's compelling, it's satisfying, and I can instantly sense the potential for some unholy synergy.
There was a fairly divisive alpha for the game earlier this year, and after playing it I was concerned that, in its search for something new, Nioh 3 had strayed too far from the path that made the original duology great. After all, in the interim period, Team Ninja has experimented with more Sekiro-like systems (Wo Long) and open worlds (Rise of the Ronin), neither of which - for my money - come even close to the heights of the Nioh games.
But spending ideas on new series seems to have galvanised Team Ninja, much in the way that solo artists seem to use their side projects as ways to clean out the guff before they come back to their main band for a big, comeback LP. Perhaps the biggest example of this is Nioh 3's 'open field' design. It's not open world - and, as such, feels far more curated and interesting than whatever was going on in Rise of the Ronin - but levels are more 'modular', packed with little activities that are great for levelling up, and which feel like catnip for completionists. It's like Elden Ring, in macro: struggling with a boss in one of the new super-hard Crucible areas? Go clear out a base or two, polish off some optional objectives, and come back later, a few levels higher. You'll have an easier time.
The alpha failed to capture any of this (and, of course, the difficulty tuning was a bit off - par for the course for the Nioh pipeline). After playing through one full level and a couple of super-hard side missions, I can safely say that the open-ended design actually rhymes really well with how I expect a Nioh game to play. There's a really nice rhythm to the game, with bigger levels split into smaller sections, sometimes containing their own bosses and skill-checks. Optional areas encourage you to come back later, with new skills or weapons, and offer decent rewards for putting enemies in the ground.
This new cadence also provides a good balance to all the menuing. Controversially, I love this aspect of Nioh. More so than any Souls game, you need to spend a lot of time in the menu mines in this series. Yes, they're clunky, yes, they seem impenetrable when you first open them up, but once you're au fait with the seemingly infinite overlapping systems and stat screens, you see just how deep an action-RPG this game is. "If you spent 30 hours in the menus in the previous games," a PR jokes with me at the preview, "you're going to spend 60 hours in them in this one!" I reckon I've lost a lot of you with that line, but for me, I am not exaggerating when I say I got a light smattering of goosebumps on hearing that. I'm a min-max sicko, a loot goblin, a build queen: seeking out the pinnacle builds for both samurai and ninja? Phwoar.
Not three hours into my preview, that promise (threat?) from the well-meaning Koei Tecmo staffer came true. I'd found a decent water-based odachi to equip to my samurai, alongside armour that boosted water-based attributes. For my ninja, I had a kusarigama (chain sickle) that could cause paralysis. I'd lay down some big poise and health damage with my samurai, expending my own stamina, then swap to ninja and use some abilities to inflict poison build-up. After a slight stamina recovery, I could use the low-impact kusarigama moves and basically stun-lock most enemies before they could respond. Whether this setup was intentionally placed in the demo, or I'd just so happened to find some incidental tools I could MacGyver together into a rudimentary build, I don't know. But therein lies the joy of Nioh: the loot and menus are just puzzles, and it's up to you to figure out what picture they're trying to make.
I suspect the build we played was intentionally mid- to late-game to show off a broad gallery of the new enemies you'll fight, but I'll take it. Enemy variety has been a criticism of the series since inception, but now, three games in, I think there's enough variation to justify the bigger maps. The combination of human enemies and demonic yokai means every individual encounter feels unique, and you're happy for the challenge of tougher enemies after a gauntlet of weaker ones. Checkpointing and runbacks are fair - you probably have to run past three or four enemies per boss, at least in the level we played. Again, that's par for the course in Nioh. This isn't the first Dark Souls; you're not wasting time if you flub a boss.
After Wo Long, Rise of the Ronin, and that dubious alpha, I was worried that one of my favourite series had, as they say, 'lost the sauce'. Team Ninja knows its audience, though, and knows how to make the most of its resources. It took Capcom three attempts to make a truly classic Devil May Cry. It took Bungie three attempts to hit the heights of Halo 3. I think Team Ninja's third act, from what I've seen so far, has what it takes to best the best in the series - a genre highlight, a compelling example of a studio marching to the beat of its own peculiar, atypical drum.
The game is pretty ugly, though. That's the only real criticism I have after a good five hours in its twisted take on historical Japan. But I don't come to Nioh for the weirdly shiny, slightly-homogenised graphics. I come for the gameplay. And, from what I've played so far, I can assume I'm going to stick around for a long time when the game launches. I hope we get another demo, so Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja can really show off the gripping potential this game has.
This preview is based on a build played during a trip to Paris, France. Koei Tecmo provided travel and accommodation.