The long awaited Ni-Oh is almost finally here- although it will be missing its projected release window by just a few months. At Sony’s pre-Tokyo Game Show PlayStation Japan conference, Tecmo Koei confirmed that Ni-Oh will be launching worldwide on February 9 in 2017.

This actually completely stacks up February with an almost unreasonable amount of games- on PS4 alone, February will have Horizon: Zero Dawn, Persona 5, and now Ni-Oh next year (in the west, at least- Japan doesn’t have to worry about Persona 5 then, they get it tomorrow). And all three of these are going to be long, lengthy games demanding quite a bit of investment! This isn’t even counting multiplatform games, or games on other systems.

Ni-Oh‘s delay (because that is what this is) is presumably to incorporate more of the feedback from the game’s betas into the final game. Given just how great the development seems to be coming along, if this results in a superior final product, I will be fine with it.

Late last month, Tecmo Koei released an alpha demo build of the upcoming, long in development PlayStation exclusive Ni-oh. The demo was very well received overall, with favorable comparisons being drawn between it and other action games like Dark Souls and Tecmo’s own Ninja Gaiden.

Today, Tecmo published the results of the survey that gathered feedback from those who played NiOh‘s alpha demo last month, which you can see below (along with some graphs that give us a breakdown of the reception of each component of the demo by region):

Tutorials

• Implement a training stage for tutorials on basic controls and core game
actions.

Action & Controls

• Improve player & camera behavior during lock-on.
• Change the conditions under which the player character becomes
unresponsive when the Ki Gauge is empty.
• Expand item shortcut slots.
• Revise the objects which require holding a button and the response to
the hold input.
• Improve detection for the half-circle analog stick input.

Enemies

• Adjust attack and defense parameters of enemies.
• Revise enemy pursuit of the player.
• Revise superarmor (stagger/no stagger) for each enemy and attack.
• Adjust Revenant AI.

Level Design/Stages

• Improve exploration elements such as shortcuts, etc.
• Add hints to guide players to boss areas.
• Revise the display of objects that block the view of the player character.
• Adjust fire area damage.

UI

• Improve layout and displayed information.
• Adjust text size.

Online

• Improve online synchronization.
• Adjust the rate at which enemy parameters increase during co-op play.

Other

• Remove durability stat for weapons and armor.
• Adjust the drop rate for equipment.
• Add a new control type.
• Implement a flow to allow players to exit a mission.
• Fix other bugs.

Ni-oh will launch exclusively on PS4.

Not a lot’s been heard about Team Ninja’s Ni-Oh, a difficult hack and slash adventure game that was expected to release for the PS4 this year after its announcement at Tokyo Game Show 2015. However, the developer finally released footage from behind closed doors at the event, showcasing Ni-Oh in all of its glory.

The project is fairly reminiscent of From Software’s Dark Souls series, though Ni-Oh takes place in a Feudal Japan-like setting (and is based off of a script by the legendary Akira Kurosawa). Considering that Team Ninja is also the studio behind Ninja Gaiden, it knows enough about making brutally difficult hack and slash titles.

At this point, Ni-Oh is still slated to release in 2016 for the PlayStation 4. More information will likely be coming at E3 2016 or even from TGS 2016 so stay tuned and let us know what you think of the gameplay footage in the comments below.

Koei Tecmo’s long in development Ni-Oh, a hack and slash action RPG in the tone of Dark Souls, will be utilizing the full extent of the PS4’s power, targeting 60 frames per second and 1080p resolution.

This was revealed by CEO Kou Shibusawa who told 4Gamer (translation by Zhugeex), who also talked about the many iterations the game went through including a Dynasty Warriors-esque title and a Ninja Gaiden clone. The Dark Souls approach, referred to as “Sengoku dark fantasy”, is what the team ultimately settled on.

Ni-Oh has been re-emerged at last year’s Tokyo Game Show to a good amount of fanfare and Koei Tecmo has assured fans that it will be out in 2016 for the PS4. We’re not sure if it’ll be out in the West as well this year so stay tuned for more information and let us know what you think of Ni-Oh in the comments below.

Team Ninja’s Ni-Oh, a historical action title to be published by Koei Tecmo on PS4 next year, received some more gameplay footage at the PlayStation Experience.

Ni-Oh isn’t quite like Ninja Gaiden – the action is a bit slower – but it still features the same penchant for violence with decapitations, blood splatters and much more. There’s also plenty of igniting enemies to be had, which never really gets old. Check out the gameplay trailer below and form your own impressions.

As for the story, there isn’t too much we know right now aside from the fact that you play as a samurai in the Warring States period in 16th century Japan. There are baddies to slice and you slice them. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

Ni-Oh will be releasing in 2016 but it doesn’t have a fixed release date on PS4. What are your thoughts on it? Let us know in the comments below.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

Originally announced by Koei in 2004, the game was based on an unfinished script by legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa titled Oni which is the Japanese word for Demon. Originally, the game was supposed to be released with a companion film, also titled Oni, that would have seen the directorial debut of Hisao Kurosawa, Akira Kurosawa’s son. This plan changed as the game’s development dragged on.

The first announced release date of the game, which was re-titled Ni-Oh was in the summer of 2006. The game’s release date was the first of any to be announced for any PS3 game, but it was slated several months after the PS3’s planned release in spring 2006. This meant that despite the release date being announced early, it was never scheduled to be a launch title for the new console.  In preparation for the 2006 release, a pre-rendered game trailer was shown at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo and a similar trailer was shown at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show.

The game missed the initial 2006 release window without any comment from the developers and the title was believed dead after several more years without any comment about the game. In 2009 Koei confirmed the game was still in development. The development team went so far as to apologize for not giving any kind of updates. In 2010 Koei (now Koei Tecmo) announced that Tecmo’s Team Ninja would be finishing development of the game. In an interview with Siliconera, Team Ninja head Yosuke Hayashi described their vision of the adopted game saying, “We ran lots of tests and trials for Ni-Oh. After we ran through these we found a style that fits this title. At Team Ninja, we want you to experience the feel of action in our games. Ni-Oh is set with during the samurai era and we want you to feel what it’s like to be a samurai.”

In 2012 Koei Tecmo’s President and CEO, Yoichi Erikawa, announced that the game had completed its alpha development cycle, and that the work was “continuing steadily.” Two years later, in August of 2014, Koei Tecmo filed a brand new US trademark for the game which indicated it was nearing a point where it could go public with the new game. In November of that year, the development team gave an interview where they said that the game is still in development and, “it is starting to come together and feel good.” Ni-Oh was officially re-revealed and branded instead for the PlayStation 4 at the Tokyo Game Show 2015 on September 15, 2015. The company announced it was slated for a 2016 release. The development team has stated they believe they will be able to get the game to run at 60 fps. Koei Tecmo has talked eventually releasing a beta in order to let people try it out before the official release but nothing has been confirmed.

Story

The game follows the story of a blond-haired Samurai named William, who is the son of a Japanese lord and a Western woman in 16th-century Japan, the game takes place during the Warring States period in Japan and is supposed to loosely follow the actual history of the country. The game is based on an unfinished script that was also going to be part of a movie set for release around the same time as the game was originally slated for release way back in 2004 when it was announced. Just what the story is supposed to be isn’t yet known yet beyond the blonde samurai who will fight a number of different enemies including monsters and demons that have appeared

Gameplay

William is capable of fighting demons, monsters and human enemies using all kinds of weapons from swords to spears. Spears have better range and can hit numerous enemies, but if the player is in narrow areas they might end up hitting the walls with those spears, so it won’t always be easy. The weapons have their own characteristics depending on the situation there are being used, and there will also be combat stances that are better for offensive or defensive modes. The game is said to be taking aspects from Dark Souls and this is illustrated most obviously with a feature found in the online mode called the “Bloodied Blade Mound.” This feature will let players see bloody mounds of swords where other players have died. If the player happens to touch these mounds, the player becomes “Shigurui,” or “confused corpse” and will begin a battle. The battles will allow players to get some loot drops that will help William level up.

Another aspect that is similar to Dead Souls is the ability of William to hold various “Guardian Spirits” in his weapons. During various battles throughout the game, these Guardian Spirits will show up to do a powerful attack. If William dies the Guardian Spirit stays where he dies, and the player will need to go back to retrieve it before being able to use that spirit again.

William can actually become fatigued if he tries to pull off too many moves or fights at one time. There is a stamina meter which limits the number of actions that can be preformed at a time. Among the enemies William will be able to fight, there will be giant Yokai boss fights that will feature creatures that are harder to defeat by a great deal compared to the other monsters in this world. The game seems to have gameplay aspects that are also pulled from Ninja Gaiden based on the way the character moves through the world.

Characters

The only named character in Ni-Oh so far is William, the blonde haired Samurai, who is also the main character and the hero of the story. There are a number of other NPCs showed off in the trailer but there isn’t much known of them or the enemies William will have to face.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game

Ni-Oh was originally announced by Koei Tecmo back in 2004, as a planned launch title for the PlayStation 3. Obviously, that never happened, and like a lot of PS3 games that were announced but slowly forgotten as vaporware, Ni-Oh was expected to be a game that simply would never be.

Until yesterday, when it was re-revealed at Sony’s TGS conference yesterday (Sony is sort of making it a habit of reviving and re-revealing these long awaited but ultimately forgotten game projects this year, aren’t they?). The game looked seriously awesome, like a mix between Capcom’s classic Onimusha, as well as From Software’s more recent Souls games.

So, how did the game survive a development cycle over a decade long? As Siliconera reports, the reason is fan anticipation- in spite of being more or less vaporware, the game routinely used to feature on ‘Most Anticipated Games’ lists in Japan, which gave Tecmo the incentive to continue working on the title. Basically, Koei Tecmo continued working on the game behind the scenes, even while hearing people say “you guys just announced it haven’t even made anything, right?”

That’s a hell of a story- let’s just hope that Ni-Oh does not suffer from the same issues that most games with such protracted development cycles do.