The traditional approach is less exciting, but it works remarkably well for the series’ first open-world outing.
Last week, I was tearing my hair out trying to mod Fallout: New Vegas on my Steam Deck, all because I’m apparently incapable of resisting a silly TV show tie-in.
This week? It’s yokai hunting season.
With Nioh 3, Team Ninja has made its boldest structural shift yet. Perhaps inspired by Elden Ring, or perhaps building on the studio’s own open-world experimentation in Rise of the Ronin, the series has abandoned its mission-based framework in favor of sprawling, densely packed open zones designed for exploration.
As I carved through demons and was repeatedly humbled by their brutal counters, comparisons to Elden Ring were unavoidable. But rather than feeling like rivals, the two games quickly revealed themselves as complements—distinct philosophies coexisting under the same broad genre umbrella.
Two Very Different Visions of Open Worlds
Elden Ring’s world design stands apart from most modern open-world games. The Lands Between—and later, the Land of Shadow—reject the familiar Ubisoft-style formula of icons, checklists, and guided progression. Instead, they demand curiosity, patience, and a willingness to get lost.
There’s no hand-holding here. The map doesn’t tell you where secrets are. It doesn’t even guarantee that you’ll notice them. Discovery in Elden Ring is earned through observation, risk, and often sheer stubbornness. It’s one of the rare games that truly captures the fantasy of adventure—of stepping into the unknown with no clear sense of what lies ahead, only the certainty that something does.
If there’s a modern peer, it’s Breath of the Wild, though the resemblance is superficial. Where Zelda thrives on playfulness and experimentation, Elden Ring is a hostile, brooding mystery that seems actively offended by your presence.
Nioh 3 Plays It Safe—and That’s Not a Bad Thing
Nioh 3, by contrast, embraces a far more conventional open-world structure. Each region has a suggested level range, and while you’re free to roam, the game is more than happy to show you exactly where everything is.
Exploration increases a region’s “exploration level,” and as that meter fills, points of interest are revealed wholesale on the map. Side activities, collectibles, and challenges are all clearly marked. There’s no ambiguity here—Nioh 3 is unapologetically a map-clearing game.
This system is lifted almost wholesale from Rise of the Ronin, and the influence is unmistakable. In many ways, Nioh 3 feels like a fusion of that game’s open-world framework with the series’ signature soulslike combat and systems-heavy design.
And honestly? That formula should have exhausted me by now.
Why It Still Works
I’ve played too many open-world games like this. I didn’t even finish Rise of the Ronin—open-world fatigue set in hard. There’s every chance Nioh 3 could eventually meet the same fate.
But right now, I’m having a great time.
The difference lies in what you’re fighting. In most open-world games—Assassin’s Creed included—you’re cutting down endless variations of the same basic enemy. Even when the combat is mechanically deep, an enemy is still just a person with a weapon.
Nioh 3 doesn’t give you that luxury. Its world is filled with yokai, each with distinct behaviors, attack patterns, and elemental quirks that demand attention and adaptation. Combat never fully settles into mindless routine because the threats refuse to become trivial.
That density of systems—loot, stances, abilities, enemy design—recontextualizes the open world. Traversing the map doesn’t feel like busywork when every encounter carries real mechanical weight and genuine risk.
Familiar, But Compelling
Is Nioh 3’s open world less exciting than Elden Ring’s? Absolutely. It lacks mystery. It lacks that intoxicating sense of the unknown.
But it also knows exactly what it is.
By marrying a familiar open-world structure with one of the deepest combat systems in the genre, Nioh 3 proves that even a well-worn formula can still shine—so long as the moment-to-moment play is strong enough to carry it.
I might burn out eventually. But for now, I’m more than happy to keep clearing maps, learning monsters, and hunting yokai until they hunt me right back.
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