Every Nioh game, ranked
All 2 Nioh games we hold, spanning 2017 to 2021: 2 ranked by the GamingPickz Score and plotted below, the rest listed in release order so nothing in the series is missing. Together they carry 89,423 Steam reviews.
Where to start
- For the best-reviewed: Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition (GamingPickz Score 7.9), the highest-rated entry we can score.
- For canon order: begin with Nioh: Complete Edition (2017) and follow the release-order timeline below.
The Nioh games on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueThe same 2 games, plotted rather than listed. The two axes below are the ones the ranking is built from, so a game sitting high and right is a game the formula placed near the top. Change either axis to see the field a different way. Where we hold a publisher wordmark, the game is drawn as its mark rather than a dot.
2 games have both
Axes are fitted to these 2 games rather than the full 0 to 100 scale, because a filtered list shares a narrow band and would otherwise sit in one corner. End values are marked. A point on the left edge is the lowest of thesegames, not a low score.
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
2 best Nioh games, ranked
Ordered by GamingPickz Score. Every figure links back to the source that produced it.
- 1
Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition
Best for: Playing through with a friend online
7.9GamingPickz Scorehigh confidenceNioh 2 – The Complete Edition at a glance Released 2021 Studio KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. Player sentiment 87% positive of 50,508 Critics 86/100 Price $49.99 Steam Deck playable Install size 85 GB Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 87% shrinks to 87.0 on 50,508 reviews, then blends with the 86 critic aggregate, giving 7.9.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
- 2
Nioh: Complete Edition
Best for: Playing through with a friend online
7.4GamingPickz Scorehigh confidenceNioh: Complete Edition at a glance Released 2017 Studio KOEI TECMO GAMES CO., LTD. Player sentiment 79% positive of 38,915 Critics 84/100 Price $49.99 Steam Deck unsupported Install size 80 GB Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 79% shrinks to 79.0 on 38,915 reviews, then blends with the 84 critic aggregate, giving 7.4.
Worth checking first- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
- Valve rates it Unsupported on the Steam Deck.
Best and worst entry
The best-received Nioh game we can score is Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition at 7.9. The lowest is Nioh: Complete Edition at 7.4, a 0.5-point spread across the series. The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.
Cheapest way in, and best value
- Cheapest right now: Nioh: Complete Edition at $49.99. Prices are read live from Steam and move.
- Best value: Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition, the most GamingPickz Score per dollar in the series at its current price.
On a Steam Deck
Valve's own Deck compatibility rating for the Nioh entries on Steam:
- Playable: Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition
- Unsupported: Nioh: Complete Edition
Platforms across the series
Where the 2 Nioh games have landed, counting every entry we hold:
| Platform family | Entries |
|---|---|
| PC | 2 of 2 |
The Nioh series, game by game
Every Nioh game we hold, in release order. Each description is the game's own, from Steam where it has a listing and Wikipedia for the older entries, never ours.
- 2017
Ready to die? Experience the newest brutal action game from Team NINJA and Koei Tecmo Games. In the age of samurai, a lone traveler lands on the shores of Japan. He must fight his way through the vicious warriors and supernatural Yokai that infest the land in order to find that which he seeks. (Steam)
Plot
Setting and characters Nioh is set in 1600 within a fictionalized dark fantasy version of the late Sengoku period , a time when the clans of Japan were at war prior to the unification under the Tokugawa shogunate and the beginning of the Edo period . Amidst the fighting and high death toll, yōkai have appeared and begun wreaking havoc across the land: major yōkai threats that appear in the game include Hinoenma , Jorōgumo , and a Yuki-onna born from the… (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception Nioh received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic . Most critics praised the combat, difficulty, setting, use of Japanese folklore, and aesthetics as high points, as well as giving players the option to choose different graphical modes for the PS4 version; while the game's story and inventory management were met with some criticism. Eurogamer ranked the game 35th on their list of the… (Wikipedia)
- 2021
Battle hordes of yokai in this masocore Action RPG. Create your protagonist and embark on an adventure through a myriad of locales across Japan during the Sengoku period. Utilize the new Yokai Shift ability to defeat even the most ferocious yokai and be prepared to brave through Dark Realms created by your enemies. (Steam)
Nioh, head to head
Two entries side by side on score, price, specs and reception:
Nioh vs other series
How Nioh stacks up against other series in the same genre, as a whole:
Also: Nioh vs South Park
Common questions
How many Nioh games are there?
We hold 2 Nioh games in the catalogue, released between 2017 and 2021. 2 of them carry enough Steam data to rank; the rest are listed in release order below, including console-only entries with no Steam listing.
Which Nioh game is best?
By the GamingPickz Score, Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition rates highest at 7.9. That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, computed the same way for every game, not our opinion. The full ranking is above.
What order should I play the Nioh games in?
Release order is listed below, from 2017 to 2021. For most series that is also story order, but we list dates rather than telling you a canon; the timeline is read from Wikidata.
More franchises
Browse every game franchise ranked the same way, or head to the full grid.