Steam Deck Unsupported!Welcome to my review of Nioh 3. This game is brought to us by developers Team NINJA (Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, NINJA GAIDEN: Master Collection) and publishers Koi Tecmo (Dynasty Warriors 9, Samurai Warriors 4).
For the purpose of this review I was kindly given a key for the Steam (PC) version of the game. If you haven’t guessed, this is the third instalment in the massively popular Action RPG series titled Nioh.
The Game
Let’s get this out of the way… Nioh 3 feels easier than its predecessors. There. I said it. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing though, because Nioh was a very unforgiving game that felt brutal at times. In some ways, Nioh 2 felt somewhat easier but not largely. It is an absolutely beautiful game though!
In many ways, Nioh 3 feels like (to me at least) Team Ninja are finally loosening the screws on its own formula.
Where Nioh built its reputation on punishing precision combat, Nioh 2 doubled down with deeper build optimisation, Nioh 3 shifts the focus toward player expression.
Its expanded parry options, more versatile ninja toolkit, and emphasis on adaptive decision‑making give combat a fluidity the earlier games simply don’t offer.
As mentioned, the difficulty curve has also eased up a bit. Of course, it’s still demanding, but far more approachable thanks to tools like the regenerating shuriken‑and‑explosives Ninja Style. These tools regenerate during combat with each hit you land.
The result is a game that retains the series’ trademark intensity while finally letting players define their own rhythm, rather than forcing them into one.
Don’t get me wrong, the game still is not a breeze. However, it is lots of fun. Learning the ninja style takes a little getting used to but once you do, you feel almost invincible.
System Requirements and Performance
Whilst the game does look pretty damn good, you will need a fairly up to date PC to enjoy it at its finest. Nothing too new is required though as the recommend CPU is 10th Gen Core-i5 or Ryzen 5 5600X. GPU wise you’ll need a 3060 Ti or RX 6700 XT. That’s to be able to play the game at a comfortable framerate (60fps) at 1080p with upscaling.
The minimum specs are an i5-10400 or Ryzen 5 2600 with either a GTX 1060 or an AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT. This will let you play the game on the “lightest” possible settings at 1080p30, with upscaling.
The game requires approximately 125 GB of your precious storage. It goes without saying that this should be installed on an SSD (at minimum) but preferably an NVMe drive.
The game also supports frame generation if that’s your kinda thing. I try not to use it myself, but it’s slowly growing on me. I’m running an i7-14700K with an RTX 4070 Super, and it runs beautifully. I also tried the game on my MSI Claw A8 (Z2 Extreme) and running around 25 watts the game actually ran more than playable.
Conclusions
Team NINJA keep up the trend of bringing us a dark action RPG set in ancient Japan. However, in Nioh 3 I do believe that this trend is aging like a fine wine. I absolutely love the whole samurai / shogun / ninja setting.
The game is beautiful, runs well, and is great to pickup and put down when you want to. Of course, should you wish to indulge yourself in a longer session then this game will fit right into that category too!
I give Nioh 3 a score of 8/10.
If you wish to check the game out, head on over to the Steam Store page.
A code was kindly provided for us to review this.
