Particularly challenging action RPGs are something of an acquired taste, but it’s a taste that’s shared by millions of gamers and die hard fans. Nioh looks to serve up more of this kind of game, but Team Ninja have brought their own ideas to the table as well, grounding itself in Japanese mythology and the real historical figure of William Adams as an inspiration.

We played a couple hours of a near-final build of the game – which you can read about here – before speaking to Game Director Yosuke Hayashi about the game’s development, themes and, of course, how cute the Guardian Spirits are.

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TSA: Nioh has had a long and storied development, so what it like coming into the project years after having to start over?

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Yosuke Hayashi: The original idea behind Nioh was that the protagonist was going to be this blonde, blue eyed samurai, but beyond that, we went back to the drawing board many times over what kind of game it was going to be. Once we decided on the concept of the action combat RPG, we’ve been very focused and the direction has been very clear.

We’ve made users wait, but that’s why we introduced demos so they could try it. That’s something that we determined from the get go.

TSA: Obviously Dark Souls has been an inspiration to the combat, but what other inspirations did you take in creating the gameplay and giving the game its identity?

Hayashi-san: Since becoming director, we’ve definitely referenced things like the Diablo series, but also Samurai games didn’t really exist so we wanted to incorporate our own originality at Koei Tecmo, because we have a 30 year history of developing these kinds of games.

We didn’t intend to make a copy of Dark Souls, either, we wanted to make a game that those kinds of fans would enjoy.

TSA: It’s interesting that having the blonde haired, blue eyed, Western protagonist stayed throughout. Why was that the thing that thing that stuck?

Hayashi-san: So, the general producer, Shibusawa Kou, was very passionate about creating this kind of Samurai game with this white protagonist, so that stuck through the entire process.

TSA: I guess it gives you the opportunity to have this outsider’s perspective in the game and let players learn about Japanese mythology?

Hayashi-san: That cultural and historical element, that’s the value of it. You don’t necessarily need that knowledge to be able to play the game, but we do incorporate the history and the culture and encourage users to figure out things on their own, or as you play the game, there’s opportunities to learn about certain people and certain places. For those who are interested, they can definitely follow that.

TSA: Can I just say that the Guardian Spirits all seem to be adorable.

Hayashi-san: [laughs] A lot of times Yokai are scary, but some are also friendly and cute in appearance, and so we definitely wanted to incorporate that dynamic as well.

Also, for something like a show like Yo-kai Watch, that’s very natural for Japanese people as well.

TSA: Have you done anything to make the game more accessible to newcomers to this kind of action RPG? They can be quite intimidating with their difficulty.

Hayashi-san: We didn’t conceive Nioh just to make it a difficult game. It was always about people overcoming challenges and have a sense of accomplishment when they overcome them.

In Western culture, for instance, whether you’re a child or an adult I think there’s an affinity with swinging lightsabres. That’s definitely appealing for people. People like sword fighting, and we feel you can enjoy that Samurai sword fighting, you can enjoy the tension and the nervousness that exists in that kind of combat. If you challenge yourself in Nioh, you can definitely be satiated with that.

TSA: From the alpha and beta testing, what did you take away from the community feedback and how did that change the game?

Hayashi-san: Nioh’s a new IP and through the different demos, a lot of users provided a lot of feedback. So we improved things like the type of difficulty, to ensure it wasn’t an unreasonable level of difficulty, or the camera angles and things like that. We were definitely listening and encourage you to try again.

TSA: Finally, after launch you have PvP to be added via a patch and also the season pass DLC, but are there any other things you’ll be looking to explore?

Hayashi-san: At this stage, we’re really focussed on getting this out there and soliciting the feedback from this game, so we can continue to make iterations or improvements. We only just started thinking about the kinds of things you’re talking about, so stay tuned!

Our thanks to Yosuke Hayashi for taking the time to speak to us about Nioh, and also to Sean Yoneda for translating during the interview. The game is out on 8th February in the EU, and you can also catch our hands on written and video previews here.