NIOH 3

Three games in, Team Ninja has stopped iterating and started perfecting. Nioh 3 is the culmination of a decade of samurai Soulslikes — it takes the series' celebrated combat, splits it cleanly down the middle into Samurai and Ninja styles, drops it into an open world, and delivers what is comfortably one of the best action RPGs of the year.

The headline change is structural. Where Nioh 1 and 2 were mission-based gauntlets, Nioh 3 opens the gates into a connected feudal Japan you actually explore — capturing enemy bases, purifying Crucibles, hunting Kodama and chasing rumours across a map that finally gives the combat room to breathe. It's the Elden Ring move, and Team Ninja pulls it off without diluting the series' DNA: this is still a game about mastering stances, reading windows and bleeding ki, not about wandering for hours.

Two souls, one warrior

The Samurai/Ninja split is the masterstroke. At the press of a button you swap between a grounded, stance-dancing samurai and a faster, aerial, tool-heavy ninja — each with their own skill trees, weapons and rhythm — and the freedom to flow between them mid-fight makes Nioh 3 the most expressive combat in the series by a distance. Layer in Guardian Spirits, Burst Counters, Crucible Arts and Yokai abilities and you have a fighting system with absurd depth that still reads cleanly in the heat of a duel. The bosses, as ever, are the highlight — brutal, fair, and endlessly replayable.

It looks and runs beautifully on PS5, the loot loop is as moreish (and as overwhelming) as ever, and the move to open-world adds a welcome sense of place to a series that always felt slightly clinical. Critics agreed — an 86 Metascore, a "Mighty" on OpenCritic, and a 9 from IGN calling the combat "best-in-class."

The familiar friction

It isn't a clean sweep. For all the new structure, Nioh 3 can still feel like Nioh to a fault — the menus are a labyrinth, the loot is a firehose of numbers, and a handful of critics felt the formula, however polished, is showing its age. The open world is dense but not transformative, and newcomers will still hit the series' notoriously steep wall. It's a 7-from-some, 9-from-others kind of game — and where you land depends entirely on how much you already love this combat.

For trophy hunters, the great news: zero missable trophies. Everything is replayable after the credits — re-fight any boss, mop up any collectible. The platinum is a meaty 60–80 hour completionist haul rather than a skill wall: finish all the Myths, sweep the open world (Kodama, hot springs, Chijiko, Scampuss, shrines, bases, Crucibles), grind your character and gear, and clear the optional masters and side missions. Our full guide below maps all 51 trophies, category by category.