Bad news for Nioh fans: Team Ninja has announced that Nioh 2 will be the final game in the series.
When Nioh originally launched back in 2017, it was praised for bringing something new to the table, and was tipped as a potential rival to FromSoftware's Dark Souls series. While that didn't quite pan out, Team Ninja went on to release a sequel to Nioh - aptly named Nioh 2 - at the beginning of 2020. Nioh 2 received just as much, if not more praise, and was even nominated for Best Action Game at the Game Awards, losing out to Hades.
However, it seems like Team Ninja is done with the Nioh series for good. In a recent interview with Twinfinite, a number of developers and executives from Koei Tecmo announced their plans for 2021, including Nioh 2 director Fumihiko Yasuda. In the interview, Yasuda explains that Team Ninja will no longer be developing games in the Nioh series, but has multiple new projects that are going to start full-scale development in 2021.
It's not really surprising that the Nioh series is being shelved, even though both games are stellar experiences. Despite very positive coverage across the majority of outlets, Nioh never really forced itself into the public eye and is considered more of a niche franchise rather than something everyone needs to play. This wasn't helped by Koei Tecmo's fairly lackluster marketing campaign for Nioh 2 in March.
However, the end of the Nioh series could be the beginning of a more exciting and ambitious franchise. Back in May, Fumihiko Yasuda even revealed that he had ideas for another Nioh game, explaining that he is personally interested in Irish and Celtic mythology. It could be that he chose to move these ideas to a new IP rather than try to work them into a sequel for Nioh 2.
There's also the possibility that some of these new projects starting development next year could be new games from already established franchises. Let's not forget that Team Ninja are the minds behind Ninja Gaiden, and one of these mystery projects could see the return of Ryu Hayabusa. Whatever Team Ninja is working on, we can be sure it isn't Nioh 3.
Source: Twinfinite