Simultaneously with its initial announcement back in June this year, Team Ninja’s Nioh 3 got a two-week open alpha demo, leaving no time for players to agonize over what the new open-field map and dual playstyles would look like. This was followed up by a report on all the adjustments and improvements that would be made based on collected player feedback, such as more customizable controls and the return of weapon-swapping. In an interview with Denfaminicogamer, Nioh 3’s producers Fumihiko Yasuda and Kohei Shibata recently talked about why the series has stuck with a tradition of putting out demos before launch.
“For the Nioh series, we’ve always released demos so that we could incorporate player feedback, but the reaction was particularly strong in the recent alpha,” Yasuda comments. He explains that his team initially opted for this approach for 2017’s Nioh as it was their first time developing a punishing, die-and-retry game (“shinigē” in Japanese) of its kind. “Since it’s not the kind of game that lives or dies on things like atmosphere or graphics, it was very important for us to hear opinions based on hands-on experience.”
According to Yasuda, there are multiple sides as to why demos are valuable to Team Ninja. “Player feedback sometimes reinforces our confidence in what’s good in the game, and other times it makes us rethink things entirely. I also believe this process has helped fuel the passion of the playerbase and grow a community around the Nioh series.”
At the same time, Yasuda jokes that this is his “public” answer to the question, while the “hidden” one is that sometimes, the developers simply lack confidence. “Of course, we do have confidence and conviction in what we’re making as creators. But the longer you work on something, the more subjective you become.” Interestingly, he notes that as the development cycle stretches on, the development team sometimes becomes less responsive to issues the producer points out. This is where having player feedback plays an important role. “When you say, ‘This is what the players are saying,’ the staff’s reaction is completely different,” he explains.
“The Nioh series has been refined through multiple demo releases, and as a team, we feel it was the feedback from our players that allowed us to bring it so far.”
Nioh 3 is scheduled to release on February 6 for PC (Steam) and PS5.
