Nioh has officially gone gold!
In a tweet from the official Nioh twitter account, Nioh has "succeeded in master up," a phrase which here means the game has "gone gold". This is great news, at least for those of us who care. Going gold means that Nioh is on track to hit its February 9 Japan release date. Feb 7 in North America, Feb 8 in Europe. Nioh will also start a livestream this Friday, January 20. at 22:00 JST, which is roughly 8:00 EST, 5:00 PST. Unless you don't mind staying up late, or waking up early, catching it live might not be the best idea. I recommend catching the replay.
Nioh is unabashedly inspired by the gameplay of the Souls series, but the setting couldn't be more different. Feudal Japan as discovered by the first "western Samurai" is a fresh take on the genre.
Team Ninja also revealed that, while not at launch, there will be a PvP mode in a post-launch update. Game director Yosuke Hayashi said Team Ninja welcomes fans of PvP from similar games, such as Dark Souls.
"We figured that a lot of different gamers, including those who enjoy Dark Souls, would also play Nioh," he said. "In the past, we did get feedback from our gamers about whether or not this kind of [PvP] feature existed. We wanted to make sure that we made a commitment to it, and to announce it."
Hayashi also wanted to assure fans that this is not a tacked on feature. Nioh has been designed with PvP features in mind.
"As a rule within the game, [main character] William, as well as the enemies that you fight, move and operate in the same way. The reason why we created that game rule is because of developing player versus player at a later date."
Team Ninja hasn't decided on whether or not Nioh's PvP will be sprinkled around the environments in single-player or if there might be specific PvP arenas for duels. Still up in the air right now, but either way, I'm sure it will be up to Team Ninja's high standards.
