A lengthy bout of Nioh 2 gameplay has been revealed in several streams recently posted to the internet. These videos may be coming in from players who are participating in the Nioh 2 closed alpha that was recently announced, although the test hasn’t yet officially begun. As far as we know, this is the first look that we’re getting at the closed alpha from the latest game developed by Team Ninja (and sequel to 2017’s Nioh).
Gematsu reports that a three-hour Twitch livestream and a two-hour YouTube video have been uploaded to the Internet, giving gamers more than five hours total of gameplay to sift through. A lot of what we see will be familiar to players of the first game, although there have been some changes for the sequel to this upcoming Team Ninja title.
These Nioh 2 gameplay streams also mark the debut of the game’s character creator. The pre-created protagonist of the first series is being replaced by something made by the player. The Twitch stream went with a silver-haired woman for their character and the YouTube stream elected to go with the default male character with some minor adjustments made. Here’s an image of the character creator in action:
We also get to see the game’s skill system in action. Body, Heart, Stamina, Strength, Skill, Dexterity, and Magic are all making their return in the sequel. Spirit, however, has been replaced with the new “Courage” stat. The menus in Nioh 2 will be well-familiar to players of the first game.
Several comments on both streams note that the game appears to have had some graphical improvements, something that isn’t that big of a surprise for a sequel. Here are the embeds so you can watch the streams for yourself:
One last interesting thing to point out: it seems that Nioh 2 will be published by Sony Interactive Entertainment in the West. We can’t say for sure when you’ll be able to get your hands on Nioh 2; as far as we can tell, the odds are good that it will be arriving sometime before the end of 2019.