This morning, KOEI TECMO and TEAM NINJA announced that Nioh 3 has already become a million-seller and is, to date, the fastest-selling game in the action RPG series. We previously had a glimpse of the game's early success in its concurrent player peak on Steam, which far surpassed its predecessors'.
Another side is the very strong critical reception, which is being celebrated with a dedicated accolades trailer that prominently features our own review score (9.8/10). Earlier this month, Francesco De Meo explained in great detail why he felt Nioh 3 is the Japanese developer's best work yet:
Nioh 3 is the culmination of Team NINJA’s evolution. By masterfully blending the engaging exploration of an open-field structure with a deep, dual-style combat system that bridges the gap between 'Masocore' and character-action, it has evolved into a genre of its own. While technical issues hold the game back, it is the definitive samurai fantasy and a modern masterpiece of action design.
The only real downsides are the performance issues, although that's not exactly surprising given that KOEI TECMO and TEAM NINJA have historically always struggled in this area. In Wccftech's technical analysis and graphics tuning guide, Sebastian Castellanos wrote:
Frankly, Nioh 3 underwhelms when it comes to its achieved balance between visual fidelity and performance — and that’s disappointing for a AAA PC title released in 2026. Despite generally strong reviews for its combat systems and world design, the PC port still carries forward some of the same technical shortcomings that plagued previous Team Ninja releases: subpar optimization on both the CPU and GPU, and an engine that struggles to present a stable experience unless the game is locked to fixed framerates.
The Katana Engine’s sensitivity to non-standard framerates results in noticeable judder and uneven camera motion when your framerate isn't holding at a steady framerate figure, and many players are still reporting performance issues even on fairly powerful hardware. These issues are not minor tweaking details — they are foundational to the core gameplay feel, and it’s frankly unacceptable that a AAA 2026 PC release ships in this state, requiring players to lock framerates or rely heavily on upscaling/frame generation just to achieve a semblance of stability.
In short, while Nioh 3 unquestionably has depth and quality in its combat and systems, those strengths are strongly let down by a technical package that feels unfinished and insufficiently optimized. In the modern PC landscape — where much better-looking titles offer solid uncapped performance, smooth frametimes, and correct behavior with fluctuating framerates — Nioh 3 feels like a step backward. Until game updates from Team Ninja or community mods address these issues in a meaningful way, getting a truly impressive visuals to performance balance out of this game remains an uphill battle.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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