Nioh 3 tips and tricks: 10 things I wish I knew before starting

Nioh 3 is an undeniably tricky game, and that’s exactly why some tips and tricks will help.

There are so many menus to scroll through and modifiers to change that it’s hard to know where to get started in Nioh 3, and that’s after you learn to play while swapping between two distinct combat styles. It’s a lot to take in, especially if you’re new to the series. In this guide, we’re breaking down some essential tips and tricks that will give you the edge over the most formidable opponents in Nioh 3.

Ninja-style is really strong

Most Nioh players experienced with the previous games are probably going to go into Nioh 3 and focus on the Samurai-style by default, which is entirely understandable. The Ninja-style loses the Deflect technique, along with stances and Ki Pulse, which are all valuable mechanics. But what the Ninja-style loses, it makes up for in speed, versatility, and Ninjutsu techniques. The Ninja-style makes the game feel more like Ninja Gaiden than Nioh, but that’s no bad thing, and is a great way to take out your foes. Bonus tip: in the Ninja-style you can use Shuriken as you recover Ki, and they will often interrupt the attacks of humanoid enemies.

Skills change everything

When at a Shrine, you should make sure to check your Skill Management menu. You’ll regularly pick up Skill Texts along with items to increase your Skill Points, and if there’s any kind of minor issue you have with the flow of gameplay, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find a solution in your Skills. Make sure to purchase Memorandums from the Sudama you find to increase your Skill Points. Bonus tip: make sure to get the Evade Skill for the Ninja-style.

Clear the map as you go

Following on from the last tip: make sure to clear the map as you go. For most areas, you’ll unlock Exploration Level 4 naturally, highlighting all important items and POIs on your map, and when you do hit that point, you should backtrack through the area to clear up the things you missed. This will include Skill Texts, Kodama, Six Jizo, and basically everything important you might regret leaving behind.

Spend Guardian Skills, save Living Artifact for bosses

In combat, your Guardian Skills are there to be spent. You’ll recharge them quickly as you fight yokai and enemies, and they make for a powerful combo ender. You can even get a Skill that allows Guardian Skills to interrupt enemy Burst Attacks, which is less timing-intensive than a Style Switch Burst Break. Living Artifact, meanwhile, is a powerful transformation and is best saved for tough bosses. Wait for a tough foe to lose all its Ki, and then use Living Artifact to inflict a massive amount of Ki damage before it can recover. This is an effective way to shorten the length of pretty much any boss battle.

Use Battle Scrolls to revisit areas and for more Amrita

When at a Shrine, you can access the Battle Scroll menu, which essentially lets you play new and old missions. Everything you need to finish the main game can be found in the overworld, but as you progress, you’ll unlock new Battle Scroll missions that feature unique enemy encounters and missions. Battle Scrolls are purely optional, but they allow you to access new swathes of enemies to farm Amrita from, or you can revisit earlier missions and areas that may be locked off to you, like Crucibles. If a foe feels too tough, clear through some Battle Scrolls and level up.

Don’t worry about Spirit Veins

Many of the Spirit Veins you find will be locked when you first find them. It’s disappointing to leave an area behind without uncovering absolutely everything, but if a Spirit Vein has a lock icon on the map, there’s nothing you can do. The Guardian Spirits you need to access each Spirit Vein are unlocked by defeating story bosses, so each will unlock over the course of the game, and any enemies you find behind them will be level-appropriate for when you unlock the Guardian Spirit.

Clear out Mount Kurama

Mount Kurama is an odd area in the Heian era where you’ll start your adventure in. It’s a simple, reasonably linear area, and once you leave, you’ll probably forget about it entirely. That’s the problem. Mount Kurama is a fully-fledged area that features Kodama, a Hot Spring, a Nurikabe, and much more, but it doesn’t have an Exploration Level that’ll highlight the essentials that you missed. Make sure to return to Mount Kurama if you finish the game with missing Kodama.

Don’t skip the Solitary Blade Myth

We won’t go into too much detail on this one; just know that you should really do the Myth titled Solitary Blade in the Bakumatsu period before you head into the Kyoto Imperial Palace Crucible. We go into more details in our Solitary Blade PSA.

Don’t ignore Titles

Titles can be found in the pause menu, and you’ll be unlocking them regularly as you progress through the game. You’ll get titles for fighting, earning gold, getting loot, uncovering POIs on the map — basically everything you do will contribute to a title. There are multiple title categories, and the points you earn from each unlocked title can be spent on buffs. Like the Jizo and Kodama Blessings, these buffs are fairly minor percentage point increases in things like gold acquisition rate and Martial Art damage, but over the course of the game, they add up to a massive increase in your efficiency in basically everything. That’s why you can’t ignore Titles.

Don’t hesitate to use co-op

It sounds like something you would only do in a worst-case-scenario, but if you’re not too concerned with feeling like the most talented gamer to ever live, there’s no reason not to play the game in co-op. Whether it’s just for a specific boss that’s got you at wits’ end, or you fancy playing the entire game with a friend at your side, you can activate co-op at a Shrine, and we’ve got a Nioh 3 co-op guide to explain what to do.

Look for Nioh 3 Guides? Read our detailed instructions for finding Kodama locations, Jizo statues, hot springs locations, Scampuss locations, and Nurikabe locations, plus breakdowns for best character creation codes, guardian spirits, blacksmith's chests, full area and missions list, and Solitary Blade Myth.