I unfortunately cannot recommend what is an incredible entry in my favorite franchise. Months and months of patches and there has been no effort from the developers to improve the worst performing game of 2026. I tried first to play on my main couch rig with Bazzite/AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D/AMD RX 9070 XT on a 4K TV. After weeks of fiddling with game and system settings, I gave up and decided it is unplayable via proton.
Most of the first era is playable, but immediately upon entering the snowy region the engine crawls to a halt. I don't mind frame issues in most games, but the way Nioh 3's engine works makes performance drops painful. You'll be getting ready to deflect an incoming attack, only for a stutter to happen that slows the game to a crawl, making you miss the parry window.
I eventually gave up and moved over to my development rig to play. That's Windows 11/AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D/RTX 4070 on a 1440p monitor. On my Windows machine I can at least get the game back to a playable state. Even so it takes lots of config tweaking to get the game to maintain a stable frame rate. That stability is required to play the game, the tougher bosses cannot be defeated without consistent performance.
It saddens me to have to write that part of the review up front. There is so much positive I want to review about the gameplay. Especially as the step from Nioh 2 to Nioh 3. I love nearly everything about the actual game. Such a shame that most people won't even get to the point of playing given how incredibly broken the the engine is.
The highlight is the split between ninja and samurai gear sets. It forces you to use a variety of playstyles and gear, as certain bosses are weaker to one style or another. The open world is fun, but I enjoyed the arcade style of levels in Nioh 1 and 2, so that isn't a huge plus for me. There are lots of little checklist items you can do around the map. It is fun to be poking around only to stumble across a major boss from the first two games wandering the woods or plains.
