The first major DLC release for Nioh 3, Hell Rising, is out now on PC and PS5. The expansion’s launch is being celebrated by Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja with a new trailer, which you can check out below. The trailer clocks in at over a minute and a half in length, and provides a brief story rundown.
Hell Rising takes players to Edo in the Keian era, where the region has been taken over by the Crucible. This has also sparked intrigue surrounding the Spirit Stones, which players will be thrown in the midst of.
Along with new missions and enemies, the Hell Rising DLC also introduces the new Hoko and Shield weapon categories. The developers have described these new weapons as being able to “combine the offensive capabilities of the short spear and the defensive capabilities of the shield”. Players can test out their new weapons with the Hundred Demon Realms Picture Scrolls, which are used to set up customizable battles that can be repeated.
The DLC introduces a new difficulty mode as well, with additional benefits that provide options for more character builds. Other gameplay additions include new Guardian Spirits, Martial Arts, Skills, Ninjutsu, and Onmyo Magic, all of which can work in tandem to provide interesting ways to take on combat encounters.
Following the release of Hell Rising, Koei Tecmo has also confirmed that the development team has started working on the second expansion for Nioh 3, dubbed Bloody Insurrection. While it doesn’t yet have a release date, the Season Pass indicates that it will be out by February 2027.
Our first look at the Hell Rising DLC came thanks to a trailer from last month. In the trailer, Takechiyo found himself confused by his surroundings, since he was unknowingly transported to 1651, where they had mysteriously died in the future, which led to the Crucible coming back. Some of the characters that players will get to fight alongside are Yagyu Jubei and Rodrigo.
Nioh 3 was released back in February, and while general reception has been quite positive, studio head Fumihiko Yasuda acknowledged in March that it’s a “great game” that isn’t yet quite “perfect”.
“Nioh 3 is a great game, but it’s not perfect. I think there are a lot of things that we could improve upon. We want to take that knowledge that we gained with Nioh 3 and open-field elements and to be able to work on that, and hopefully incorporate and improve upon that in future titles as well.”
Similarly, producer Kohei Shibata also spoke about player feedback regarding Nioh 3, noting that “we do hear the criticism” about the general lack of enemy variety throughout the Soulslike game.
“But some people might have felt that there was a little bit of variety lacking there. So we do hear the criticism, and we do hope that, if there are future titles, we can improve upon this. We would like to take that opportunity to look into that and see what we can do better.”
For more details about Nioh 3, check out our review.
