Category: IGN

For those looking to add some games to their PC library as the chilly fall weather starts to roll in, September’s Humble Choice is a great, affordable bundle to consider purchasing this month. This month’s bundle includes a wide variety of games, including WWE 2K25, Destiny 2: Legacy Collection, The Plucky Squire, and five other games you can stock up on for just $14.99 if you sign up for a Humble Choice membership. On top of those games, this month also comes with one month of IGN Plus for free, which allows you to turn off ads across the site, get free games, and more perks. Get it while it lasts.

Humble Choice September 2025 Lineup

The 20th anniversary of God of War is here, and Sony made sure to celebrate the milestone at its September 2025 State of Play by revealing something special for longtime fans: a new controller.

The PlayStation-maker revealed its Kratos-themed PS5 DualSense controller toward the end of its presentation today, showing off its ash-white color and blood-red mark. It’s not quite the new God of War game announcement many may have been hoping to see, but it does come with confirmation that it will launch in October for $84.99, with pre-orders opening October 3 at 10am local time.

The original God of War launched for the PlayStation 2 in 2005 and quickly catapulted Kratos into becoming a PlayStation icon. The 2018 soft reboot helped the god-killer reclaim his fame while introducing fans to a new Norse setting, with its sequel, God of War Ragnarok, then arriving in 2022.

The latter has received new content in the years since, with its Valhalla roguelike mode arriving as a free story update in late 2023. Outside of this, though, fans have been left waiting for any news from developer Santa Monica Studio, as the next chapter of Kratos’ journey remains a mystery.

“When we were deciding how best to embody the series, we immediately thought the form of the controller lent itself perfectly to Kratos’ omega tattoo,” Santa Monica Studio associate art director Dela Longfish explained in a PlayStation.Blog post. “No matter which God of War game you’re playing, the shape of his red ink against the gray of his ash-covered skin is one of the most iconic elements of Kratos’ look across both Greek and Norse sagas. Our team made sure to represent both of these key tones in the color selection for the controller to make every aspect an authentic homage to the design that has defined Kratos for over two decades.”

The God of War 20th anniversary Kratos controller is far from the first limited-edition accessory Sony has created. Past PS5 DualSense highlights include the PlayStation 30th anniversary controller, a The Last of Us controller, and a Death Stranding 2: On the Beach controller. Sony even loves Astro Bot so much that the mascot got not one but two limited edition controllers for collectors.

For more, you can check out everything announced at the September 2025 State of Play.

Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).

Sony has finally pulled back the curtain on its hotly anticipated PlayStation 5-exclusive Wolverine video game during its State of Play September 2025 showcase.

From Insomniac, the developer of the hugely popular Spider-Man video games, Marvel’s Wolverine is a gorier affair in keeping with the veteran X–Men superhero. It’s due out fall 2026.

The trailer shows characters Omega Red and Mystique, as well as a face-off against a Sentinel.

We’d heard nothing official on Wolverine since its reveal in 2021, save a shift in leadership reported in October 2024. Previous creative director Brian Horton jumped ship to Xbox as the new creative director for Perfect Dark, which was being co-developed by The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics before Microsoft canceled the game.

Unofficially, early Wolverine footage and information emerged from data stolen from Insomniac in December 2023.

Be sure to check out everything announced during State of Play September 2025 to find out what else is coming to PlayStation 5.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Sony’s next State of Play is happening later today, September 24, and it promises more than 35 minutes of reveals and news from developers around the world, including an extended look at Housemarque’s Saros.

While we don’t know what other surprises this State of Play has in store for us, we will be here covering all the biggest announcements right here, live as they happen. So, be sure to keep checking back to ensure you don’t miss a thing!

The State of Play kicks off at 2pm PT/5pm ET/11pm CEST, and Sony did note we will also be getting a look at third-party and indie titles, as well as updates from “some of our teams at PlayStation Studios,” meaning there may be more than just Saros to look forward to.

This particular show takes place during the week of Tokyo Game Show, and it’s also just a few days before the much-anticipated launch of Ghost of Yotei on October 2, so the Ghost of Tsushima sequel will most likely show up. Could we also get a glimpse of Marvel’s Wolverine from Insomniac? Or perhaps Naughty Dog’s Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet?

Either way, we don’t have much longer to wait to find out!

How to Watch Today’s PlayStation State of Play

If you want to watch today’s PlayStation State of Play with us, you can watch with us at any of the links below or atop the page right here! We will also have a Podcast Beyond post-show following the State of Play, where our PlayStation experts will break down all the greatest and not-so-great moments from the show!

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If you picked up the non-bundle edition of the Nintendo Switch 2 console but you changed your mind and now want Mario Kart World Tour, there’s a way you can get it for close to the bundled price. The eBay seller “Pezz’s INC” has listed a “like new” (new but opened) copy of Mario Kart World for just $54.25 with free shipping. This game normally costs $79 new. This is the best price I’ve seen for a domestic (non-imported) version of the game. The seller seems to be legitimate with 300,000 feedback and a 99.9% rating. There are also positive reviews from people who bought the game from this listing.

Mario Kart World for $54.25

Mega Evolution is making a major comeback in Pokémon Legends: Z-A, and as IGN learned in a recent hands-on with the new action-forward title, there’s more than one new spin on the years-old mechanic: you can trigger Mega Evolution multiple times in a single battle.

In the core Pokémon games, like in X and Y where Mega Evolution was introduced, you can only Mega Evolve one Pokémon per battle, even if your first Mega Evolution Pokémon faints.

Unexpectedly, that wasn’t the case during IGN’s battle against a Rouge Mega-Evolved Victreebell in Legends: Z-A–they were able to Mega Evolve all three Pokémon on their team capable of Mega Evolution, as long as they gathered the required Mega Power.

In Pokémon Legends: Z-A, the Mega Ring icon in the bottom right of the screen displays how much Mega Power you currently have. Each attack builds up Mega Power, but you can also charge it up by collecting Mega Power orbs in Rogue Mega-Evolved Pokémon battles, and by breaking certain crystals in the city.

We didn’t get to test if you can Mega Evolve multiple times in trainer battles, but were told by a public relations representative that you’re not limited to a single Mega Evolution per battle–as long as you have the Mega Stone and Mega Power to support it. It’s also been confirmed you can Mega Evolve the same Pokemon multiple times, as the Mega Evolution is retained only as long as you have the Mega Power to sustain it.

Read more about Mega Evolution, and how Mega Power can be used besides Mega Evolution, in Pokemon: Legends Z-A in IGN’s final preview, plus check out every new Pokemon in Legends: Z-A revealed so far.

Casey DeFreitas is a deputy editor on the guides team at IGN and has been catching Pokemon since the very beginning. Catch her on socials @ShinyCaseyD.

Marvel’s Spider-Man set for Magic: The Gathering arrived in prerelease form last week, and if you cracked open some packs early, then you could be about to be happier than Eddie Brock on Emo Night.

That’s because, aside from the Infinity Stone debut for the new set, one card is already up for a market price of $1,250 on TCGPlayer. Here’s what you should be looking out for.

For this new set, Wizards of the Coast has released a series of Spectacular Spider-Man cards with a textured foil finish. There are five different versions going for a lot of money right now, and while it’ll be tough to find them unless you’re looking in the horrendously overpriced Collector Boosters, one is reaching new heights of market value.

The Bombastic Bag-Man Suit, pictured above, is up for $1,250 on TCGPlayer, meaning its market value is actually higher than The Soul Stone right now. The thrown-together suit, which includes a Fantastic Four hand-me-down and a literal paper bag, is clearly well worth it for collectors.

Kojima Productions’ recent Beyond the Strand livestream gave us our first proper look at OD, the developer’s horror game that’s being produced in collaboration with Xbox Game Studios. While the project’s first trailer features barely more than a couple of minutes of gameplay and is set entirely in a single room, it’s already creating quite a buzz. That’s because it’s distinctly reminiscent of P.T., Hideo Kojima’s famous 2014 “playable teaser” for a Silent Hill game that never was. P.T. went on to influence an entire wave of dread-fuelled horror games, but it seems like Kojima is finally returning to those ideas himself for OD.

While there’s no suggestion that OD and P.T. are directly related, it’s already clear that this new Xbox exclusive horror is reusing and reinterpreting many of the themes, motifs, and designs that were established in the Silent Hills teaser. From ominous knocking to terrifying babies, let’s explore the significant connecting threads between these two projects.

Suburban Terror

Perhaps the most clear link between OD and P.T. is their perspectives and settings. P.T. is played from the first-person perspective and takes place in what (at least initially) seems to be a mundane and unremarkable suburban home. OD appears to be following that approach, at least with the sequence we see in the trailer. The area in which the terror unfolds could be a room in anyone’s house – the dull walls, herringbone flooring, and miserable weather outside suggest another boring day in suburbia. But, like P.T., there are unnerving elements that pierce through the mundanity. For one, why is the room only furnished with two armchairs, both of which are oddly positioned? Secondly, and most importantly, why is there a shrine of burning candles?

Cryptic Puzzles

P.T. earned widespread acclaim because it approached horror in a way largely unseen in video games prior. While its first-person perspective and complete lack of combat may well have been influenced by 2010’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent, P.T. went several steps further and avoided any sense of traditional video game enemies. Instead, your foe was the environment itself: an endlessly looping corridor that holds you hostage until you can solve its many mysteries. With no tools provided aside from a simple flashlight, these puzzles were cracked through the use of simple observation. Find the right clues, and the house would morph on your next loop, slowly revealing the disturbing components that pieced together to tell the story of a murdered family.

While there’s no suggestion that OD will feature any kind of looping hallway, it does appear to take a similar approach when it comes to puzzles. The trailer opens with the protagonist, played by Sophia Lillis of It and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, being told to “Light the fires to celebrate their [redacted]”. She then proceeds to light a number of candles using a box of matches, with each new flame causing changes in the environment.

Hush, Little Baby

Perhaps the most obvious and immediately scary element of this puzzle is its use of crying infants. As Lillis lights a baby-shaped candle, the shrieks of a crying newborn immediately fill the room, causing her to flinch and drop the match.

Kojima, of course, has a famous connection to babies via Death Stranding, in which “Bridge Babies” are used to detect spirits. However, P.T. also prominently featured crying babies, as well as the more horrifying image of a mutated, bloody fetus lying in a bathroom washbasin. The trailer does nothing to explain how babies are related to OD’s story, but it’s clear that Kojima is once again turning to the chilling sound of a distressed infant to give you goosebumps.

Who’s There?

While the baby’s cries are certainly disturbing, the more ominous noise is the constant knocking that becomes increasingly louder and more frantic as the trailer progresses. This will clearly be a significant element – as revealed as part of the Beyond the Strand livestream, OD is subtitled “Knock”.

“I really am afraid of big knock sounds,” explained Kojima. And, once again, we can see that expressed in P.T.. Since the entire game takes place in a corridor, the environment is naturally filled with doors, and creepy knocking echoes through the hallway as you complete loop after loop.

Of course, it’s not the knocking itself that’s frightening, but what it signifies: someone (or something) that wants to get inside. It’s a warning that your safety is about to be breached. And considering that you have no weapons in P.T., that’s a terrifying prospect. The same seems to be true of OD – Sophia Lillis’ character has no ability to defend herself from whatever is trying to get through that door.

Don’t Look Back

If it wasn’t already obvious from the oppressive atmosphere and screaming babies, it’s generally considered a bad idea to conduct a ritual about which you know nothing. Sophia’s candle lighting seems to summon something – we never see it, but after all that knocking, we hear that it opens the door and slowly, dramatically approaches. While neither we nor Sophia can see this foe, something else does: an image of an eye stuck to the window. As the man (or monster?) closes in, we see the image change – the eye opening wide in horror at what it observes.

Once again, there’s a link to P.T. here. During one of the loops, all the pictures mounted on the corridor’s walls are replaced with images of eyes that move and change as you walk through the house, as if they are observing you.

P.T. also preyed on the idea of a malevolent figure lurking behind you. The house is haunted by a spectral woman known as Lisa, who appears in a variety of frightening sequences. But beyond those scripted moments, there’s always the unsettling feeling that Lisa is close by – flickering shadows and eerie sound effects make it seem as if she’s just beyond your peripheral vision. And that’s because she quite literally is: her character model is tethered to you, constantly following behind you as you explore the house. While we have essentially no information on how OD will play, the final moments of the trailer do suggest that the fear of someone being right behind you will be explored, just as it was in P.T..

The Hills are Silent

As the unseen enemy approaches Lillis, you can hear the increasingly erratic sound of a Geiger counter. It seems to act as some kind of proximity sensor, akin to the motion detector used in Aliens. Or, perhaps more appropriately, the screeching static of Silent Hill’s radio.

P.T., of course, was both a “playable teaser” and reveal for Silent Hills, a collaboration between Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro that would have been the next, potentially revolutionary chapter in Konami’s Silent Hill series. And while there’s absolutely no chance that OD is a secret Silent Hill game – Konami is not involved at all – there do appear to be a few nods to the series throughout this trailer.

Aside from the Geiger counter replicating the function of Silent Hill’s enemy-alerting radio static, there’s also the fact that the message that begins the trailer’s ordeal is delivered on a card through a gap in the door. This is reminiscent of Silent Hill 4: The Room, in which cryptic messages are slipped under the locked door of protagonist Henry Townshend’s apartment.

The door through which OD’s mysterious message is delivered may also be hiding a small nod to Silent Hill – the design features nine red panels arranged in a three-by-three grid. This resembles the same three-by-three grid of red squares seen in Silent Hill 2, which featured on the game’s Japanese box art and can be found in-game as the story’s final save point.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see a number of other subtle references to Silent Hill in OD, but once again, this certainly isn’t Kojima finally making Silent Hills. And so while there are clear parallels between OD and P.T., the two are not canonically connected. It seems more likely that OD will relate to P.T. in the same way that Death Stranding – particularly its sequel, On The Beach – relates to Metal Gear Solid. DS2 features a refreshed approach to combat that echoes the stealth sandbox of MGS 5, and one of its central characters, Neil Vana, is a clear nod to Kojima’s most enduring hero, Solid Snake. While Kojima no longer has any official ties to his former workplace at Konami, it’s clear that he still enjoys making connections with his past projects, and so it’s only logical that OD – his first horror project since Silent Hills – will echo P.T. in a number of ways.

But it’s not how OD replicates P.T. that’s the interesting thing – the more exciting prospect is how it will build on P.T.’s successes. And so now we look forward to learning much more about this project. After all, we know so little about it. We do know that Get Out and Nope director Jordan Peele is involved, but that he’s working on a separate OD experience, one that will replace the “Knock” subtitle with a different kind of fear. So is this an anthology of games, each one exploring unique phobias? Or will OD be a collection of different media, breaking boundaries between games and films? P.T. reimagined the shape of horror over a decade ago, of course, so we’re more than ready to see Kojima do it all over again.

Matt Purslow is IGN’s Executive Editor of Features.

After years of waiting, Hollow Knight: Silksong is finally in the hands of the people. By this point, many will even have completed it. Gone are the days of applying clown makeup during each major gaming event, replaced instead by widespread love for Team Cherry’s sequel. Yet, for me, I’m struggling to be excited about Silksong, despite the fact it’s the latest entry in one of my favorite genres.

For this issue of Access Designed, I’m not going to be analysing Hollow Knight: Silksong in the traditional sense. The game’s demands of speed and precision, combined with a lack of accessibility features and my own disability, has meant that I physically can’t play it. And so I’m unable to give an accurate analysis of gameplay, story, and even the art direction of different zones, all of which can be examined through an accessible lens. Instead, I want to talk about the overarching problems of the Metroidvania genre itself, and how Silksong is just perpetuating and reinforcing inaccessible barriers.

It Goes Beyond Difficulty

Like its predecessor, Silksong continues the trend of challenging players with complex platforming and boss battles. While difficult experiences have become mainstream successes in recent years, some Hollow Knight players have noted that Silksong can be particularly punishing. Those concerns have been at least partially addressed by the developers, who notably nerfed two early game bosses within the first week of Silksong’s release. And while difficulty is absolutely an accessibility issue, I’m not going to argue for or against it in Silksong.

Difficulty is the proverbial low hanging fruit of accessibility critiques. Accessibility consultants, champions and journalists have written articles about what difficulty is or isn’t, produced clips or reels talking about the importance of difficulty settings, and created countless threads on social media, advocating for more diverse accessibility tools to adjust a game’s difficulty. We spend so much time championing the inclusion of difficulty options that we often miss other crucial barriers that prevent a variety of disabled individuals from enjoying a new game. Is Silksong difficult? According to reviews and conversations, yes. Should we focus all our accessibility arguments on that alone? Absolutely not.

What Silksong Lacks

Aside from no accessibility settings for difficulty, Silksong’s overall settings options are minimal, especially for a game released in 2025. Volume can be adjusted through sliders, the HUD can increase in size, and some actions can be rebound, but only on specific buttons. For disabled players looking for a variety of accessibility menus, Silksong is objectively a disappointment.

While I acknowledge that studios do not all share the same engine and thus don’t have a unified toolbase to create accessible options, nor do developers all have the same level of knowledge to implement these features, I do wish Team Cherry had taken direct inspiration from Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’s Memory Shards system. Ubisoft’s smart new addition to Metroidvanias allows you to take a screenshot of a location and pin it to the map, which provides a persistent reminder of previously-visited zones that may require specific items to traverse, or places to return to once you’ve become stronger. This option revolutionized the Metroidvania genre, with The Lost Crown becoming one of last year’s most accessible games. While Silksong does feature the ability to purchase and place markers on your map to help remember safe areas and other important points of interest, there’s nothing that comes close to The Lost Crown’s Memory Shards. I understand Team Cherry may not have the same resources as Ubisoft, but to offer nothing that aids accessibility beyond the bare minimum in the form of map markers is frustrating.

What Silksong Gives

As I’ve mentioned through previous editions of Access Designed, options are not the only form of accessibility. While Silksong fails to provide numerous accessible settings, its use of inclusive design, particularly through Tools, can give some relief. The Fractured Mask, for instance, prevents a fatal blow from killing Hornet. This is fantastic for physically disabled players that struggle with precise motions, or cognitively disabled players that need more time to memorize boss attack and movement patterns, allowing for a second chance at life before returning to a rest bench. The Fractured Mask is also great for difficult parkour sections, and the fact that this Tool recharges on rest means you always get that second chance on every attempt. The Compass, meanwhile, tracks your position on Silksong’s sprawling map, and is another helpful item for cognitively disabled players. And my personal favorite Tool that I’ve discovered through watching let’s plays is the Magnetite Dice, which randomly nullifies a single hit. Despite the random chance associated with this item, this is great for physically disabled players that may lack energy during extensive play sessions.

But these Tools aren’t offered immediately. Players are forced to progress through the game, beating challenging bosses and completing side quests before unlocking them. While I’m a firm believer that disabled people deserve to be challenged by the games they play, offering crucial pieces of accessibility from the very start of the game doesn’t limit that challenge – it just enables us to play like everyone else. In Silksong, some players may not make it far enough to unlock the Tool that would provide them with a vital accessibility feature.

The Overarching Metroidvania Problem

Silksong’s difficulty and lack of accessibility offerings make for an inaccessible challenge, but that’s not why I can’t play. As my disability progressed and I lost function in my hands, I found the speed and precision required to play Metroidvanias became too much. Even The Lost Crown, with its accessibility offerings, was too taxing for me to finish.

Before I decided to purchase Silksong, a friend advised me to wait until he could play. After several hours, he told me not to buy the game because the speed, combined with the dexterity needed to platform, fight, and use items, would undoubtedly leave me exhausted and frustrated. Therein lies my biggest critique of this genre – beyond what we’ve seen in The Lost Crown, no accessibility settings or system designs have yet to address the speed and inaccessibility of the core combat and platforming gameplay.

I am the first person to admit I am no game designer. I also acknowledge it’s virtually impossible to make every game accessible to every disabled player. Yet, as a lifelong fan of the genre, I genuinely miss playing these games. I’m not critiquing them out of baseless anger, but rather a desire to play one of my favorite genres once again.

Hollow Knight: Silksong, from the perspective of a sequel, is an achievement. Yet, for disabled players looking to dive deep into Team Cherry’s newest game, it’s an accessibility failure. Difficulty aside, disabled players have few offerings to help them navigate the map and defeat challenging enemies. And for those comments undoubtedly proclaiming that not every game is made for everyone, let it be for the individual to decide – not based on inaccessible practices, but rather just a fondness of the genre. For developers looking to Silksong’s success, I ask that they please use its lack of accessibility as motivation. As a lifelong fan of the Metroidvania genre, I hope someone will use Silksong’s failures as inspiration to make me return.

Grant Stoner is a disabled journalist covering accessibility and the disabled perspective in video games. When not writing, he is usually screaming about Pokémon or his cat, Goomba on Twitter.

Nioh 3, the newest entry in the Warring States Period Soulslike series, is the first to use open field maps. Unlike the previous mission-based titles, Nioh 3 sets players free in an open space, allowing you to take on areas, enemies, quests and more as you please.

So, how exactly are the game’s open fields constructed? We asked the developers about the density players can expect from the map, interesting techniques they used during development, and the struggles they faced along the way. General Producer Fumihiko Yasuda and Producer Kohei Shibata tell us about the development philosophy that lies at the core of the Nioh series, like the difference between a brutally difficult game being “unreasonable” and being “stressful.”

Drawing on Team Ninja’s experience to create dense yet free open fields

IGN: Did you run into any challenges when creating this game’s open fields?

Fumihiko Yasuda: When we tried to create open fields early on in development, we found they had lost the kind of density you’d expect from the Nioh series. While we did have some experience from creating Rise of the Ronin at the same time, the goal of that game was to depict the Bakumatsu period. The Nioh series is different in that it’s a game about overcoming a world that’s crawling with enemies.

We went through a lot of trial and error in an attempt to create dense yet free open fields. One time we tried a bottom-up approach to development by starting with Nioh’s traditional stage-based maps and expanding them from there, but those ended up feeling a little suffocating. We spent a lot of time dividing up the pace and creating the backgrounds of the maps, such as dividing them into open areas and more difficult bottlenecks.

How did your previous experience influence this part of Nioh 3’s development?

Yasuda: That’s something we’re conscious of as we make games. Development generally takes three to four years, and Team Ninja puts out a game basically every year, so we share the knowledge we’ve gained from releasing those titles within our teams and across projects. I hope we use the experience we acquire from making Nioh 3 in future titles as well.

When I looked at the open field, it felt like a map that had multiple proper routes that I could take. There were places where I could fall to my death, though. I imagine that must have been difficult to design.

Kohei Shibata: We’ve made it so that it’s easy to look at a place and know that you’ll die if you go there. Take a cliff, for example. If we made it look too realistic, it would have protrusions and rocks all around, making players feel like they can climb up it. We’ve done everything we can to remove sections like that.

We’ve also made it as clear as we can when there are multiple routes available to the player. Crucibles and Lesser Crucibles will have clearly ominous auras around them. You’ll also be able to see what areas are full of wandering enemies, giving the player the option of where to go. I do think that the fun of finding your own route has been a part of Nioh, even when it was stage-based, so we’re using that experience as well to put together our maps.

Yasuda: Until now, Nioh players instantly knew where they couldn’t go because there was no jump. But with this game, we’ve given players the ability to jump for the first time in the series, allowing them to move vertically onto roofs and adding variety to how they can play through the game. It is possible to mislead players about whether or not they can go somewhere, though, which is something our map designers had to be conscious of as they worked.

One approach that’s often used is to guide the player’s eyes by covering objects in yellow paint. I didn’t see any of that in this game, so tweaking everything to work must have been difficult.

Yasuda: Who knows, the game’s map might be bright yellow by the time it launches (laughs). Yes, the yellow paint problem is a difficult one. In a 2D game, players will notice things without needing to guide their eyes too much, but I can understand the desire of game designers to use yellow paint once you have a realistic 3D game.

Could you tell us once more about out-of-combat activities and collection elements in the game from the perspective of open-field density?

Shibata: We wanted to come up with elements that are trademarks of the Nioh series, and that’s where we added a number of activities involving yokai. These did exist before in the series as well, but you’ll be able to chase a Scampuss (a cat-like yokai) around or search for Kodama.

Yasuda: The world of the Nioh series is one where evil yokai have devastated a world during an age of war. That’s the kind of place you’re crossing, so you won’t find many peaceful towns there, even in an open-field game. That said, comical yokai do exist in addition to cruel ones, and we’ve used those as contrasts to give players a moment to decompress.

Shibata: The game has side quests known as Myths. Hell exists in this world that’s been overrun by yokai, and not many humans have been able to survive. The spirits of those who’ve passed away might ask you for help, beginning a side quest. Completing these will allow you to get a glimpse at the game’s backstory.

Yasuda: Early in development, we did have quests you could receive from living humans, since the game took place on an open field. While you do of course accept quests from major characters who are still alive, generally speaking, side quests now start with the spirits of the dead. This was something we decided on based on our focus on narrative, and it seems like a natural path for the series to take.

Is there text that will teach players overseas more about Japanese culture as they play the game?

Yasuda: History has always been a motif in the Nioh series, and so we’ve prepared a dictionary of yokai and people. It’s something we created so that players in the West can understand the games as well. There were so many characters in Rise of the Ronin, and we found ourselves feeling that there were a lot of people overseas who don’t know about the Bakumatsu period. When it comes to lore, flavor text and more about historical figures and yokai, Nioh 3 has even more of it than previous games in the series.

Shibata: This dictionary will get updated as you progress through the story. Also, as you explore the field you’ll see places that become frozen due to the influence of Crucibles, changing the mood depending on the field. History and fiction are combined and depicted according to the Nioh way of interpreting them.

The difference between “unreasonable” and “stressful”

We’ve seen a lot of brutally difficult titles in the games industry as of late, but it seems to me that the trend lately has been to think about offering options for a wider audience, such as by adding selectable difficulty. What’s your approach to difficulty in this game?

Yasuda: I think there are a lot of ways to define the Soulslike genre. Players can of course learn and get better at the action in the Nioh series, but the games are also full of RPG elements. They can increase their level, gather equipment, and create specialized builds. Compatibility and player taste also play a role when it comes to individual bosses. There are even online elements to the game, and making use of all of these to overcome a difficult moment and feel accomplished is something common to all the games in the series. We want Nioh 3 to be no exception.

While selectable difficulty is a part of some of the other games that I’ve made, Nioh 3 continues to only have one difficulty setting. There are so many ways to make it through the game, to the point where I might even worry that we overdid it this time around. We’ve been very conscious of not making the game unreasonably difficult.

If we did include selectable difficulty, you might get situations where someone says, “I beat Nioh,” only to be a bit bothered when others show up to say “What, on easy?” That isn’t a desirable outcome, so we want there to be the same value to beating Nioh no matter how you did it. It’s something that’s been important to us throughout the series, and that includes this game.

I have seen players argue over other games in the genre that did include selectable difficulty. I take those discussions into account as I make games, and I do think that selectable difficulty is a valid approach to take in games. Though I keep an eye on how players and the media react, we won’t be taking the route of adding selectable difficulty to Nioh 3.

There was one boss on the open field that I struggled against. I finally defeated it once I used the Living Artifact transformation skill, though. There are really so many ways to approach the game.

Yasuda: That is something we’re trying to do. Nioh games until now have had a linear map design, and I think that ended up requiring players to simply grind out levels if they got stuck on a boss. While there are some linear maps in this game, it has open fields, meaning that you can take other routes if you think an area is too difficult to take on. By defeating bosses elsewhere and leveling up, you can grow stronger without having to do the same thing over and over. We’ve taken a step forward in that regard by having a wider variety of ways to beat the game. There are of course challenging moments awaiting players, though. Just because you’ve explored doesn’t mean the game will be easy, and there’s still plenty of toughness there.