Team Ninja Confirms a Significant New Milestone for the Nioh Franchise

Team Ninja has disclosed that the Nioh series has reached a significant sales milestone, just as the sequel is due to be included in November’s PlayStation Plus Essential lineup. Team Ninja has lots on the horizon, including the newly announced Rise of the Ronin and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, both of which have a March release date, but for the time being, it can enjoy Nioh’s well-earned achievement.

Nioh is an action role-playing game series that has been termed Soulslike due to similarities to FromSoftware’s foundational games. Its debut instalment was released in 2017 for the PlayStation 4. Nioh received praise for its hard but gratifying fighting, intriguing use of Japanese mythology, and graphics choices, but it also received criticism for a convoluted storyline and functional but outmoded level design, especially when compared to others in the genre. However, it clearly gained a devoted and appreciative following. Because of its success, Nioh 2 was released, which featured more of the same but with a customizable player character. Both games have now made their way onto Steam as part of PlayStation’s entrance into the PC gaming industry.

Shortly after data for the forthcoming Wo Long: Dynasty were released, Team Ninja stated on Twitter that the Nioh series has sold over 7 million copies. The figure represents the total amount of physical and digital copies of Nioh, Nioh 2, and both games’ remasters sold across all platforms. Although no specifics were released about how those sales were allocated between the two entries, current data suggests that both did well, albeit the sequel was slower to gain as many sales as possible in the first few months after release.

Nioh 2 is coming to PlayStation Plus Essential in November, with the season pass available for purchase, and it is the ideal opportunity to explore Team Ninja’s fantastic fighting system. Given that Nioh 2 is a prequel and purportedly separate from the previous game’s plot, there should be no reservations about diving into it. However, Nioh 2 is substantially more developed and polished than its predecessor, so those who want to play both may want to see how the systems and mechanics improve.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty also had a short-lived demo in September, which was subsequently discovered to have been finished by over 80,000 players. Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, considered a spiritual successor to Nioh, has received similarities to both Nioh and Sekiro, featuring a fluid, fast-paced, and demanding fighting system.