Team Ninja knows where Nioh 3 fell short and plans to fix it

Team Ninja's leads behind Nioh 3 have shared some candid thoughts about the game that launched on February 6, and they know exactly what could have been done better. Studio head Fumihiko Yasuda and producer Kohei Shibata both spoke openly about what they see as areas for growth in future projects.

"Nioh 3 is a great game, but it's not perfect. I think there are a lot of things that we could improve upon. We want to take that knowledge that we gained with Nioh 3 and open-field elements and to be able to work on that, and hopefully incorporate and improve upon that in future titles as well."

Yasuda

According to Shibata, Nioh 3 grew in part out of the ideas behind Rise of the Ronin – Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja's previous open-world-adjacent game. Development kicked off around the time the Nioh 2 DLC wrapped up, and from the start the team wanted to push the series toward an "open-field" structure that preserved the mission-based format while layering in broader exploration. Many of the game's sub-areas still deliberately feel like classic levels.

On the subject of specific shortcomings, Yasuda pointed first to the narrative and how the world communicates its story through the environment. Despite the game's density and strong sense of immersion, he felt the team didn't fully succeed in letting the world speak for itself.

"While we were successful with the immersion as well as the density of the game itself, I think in terms of being able to convey a lot more about the world, the narrative element, I think we could improve upon that. As well as the artistic elements, to give it a more distinctive look. Really understand why the yokai, or why that particular yokai, is in that environment. And why does that environment look like that?"

"It's not just a game where you sort of go in there, defeat the yokai, obtain the equipment or items in that area. There's a little bit more to the narrative that we could have added. And I think that's what we can see in some other titles that really give more to that experience as well. So that's something that we saw that we could improve upon, and something that we do hope to do more in the future."

Enemy variety drew separate criticism – a recurring sore spot for soulslike games. In Nioh 3, enemies and even some bosses repeat as the game progresses, which makes later areas and dungeons feel less distinct. Shibata acknowledged the team is well aware of the feedback.

"We are aware of the criticism on this. In terms of how we respond to that, I think, with the yokai, these are creatures that have existed, in Japanese folklore, even before wild animals, even before humans had existed. These are creatures that existed much earlier. There is that element, that they appear as things that have been here in Japan before. We also wanted to incorporate some of the enemies that were in previous games, and we tried to make sure that there was a lot more variety to the battles against them so they didn't feel repetitive."

"But some people might have felt that there was a little bit of variety lacking there. So we do hear the criticism, and we do hope that, if there's future titles, we can improve upon this. We would like to take that opportunity to look into that and see what we can do better."

The tone throughout stands out compared to typical developer interviews – rather than deflecting, both producers laid out concrete weaknesses without retreating into vague reassurances. Nioh 3 has earned strong reviews overall, and that willingness to self-assess suggests Team Ninja is already thinking about what comes next in the series.