Nioh 3 players officially have new ground to cover today, as Hell Rising, the first DLC for Team Ninja’s dark samurai action RPG, is out now on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam. The expansion was announced back in July, and its release comes with confirmation that a second DLC, Bloody Insurrection, is already in development, with more information promised soon.
Hell Rising sends protagonist Takechiyo forward in time to the Keian era, where Edo has fallen into crisis following the death of its future shogun, which happens to be Takechiyo himself. The new open-field map is a hellish wasteland ravaged by the gales of the Crucible, roamed by yokai, human rebels, and alchemists from foreign lands. Joined by the one-eyed swordsman Yagyu Jubei and the Spanish envoy Rodrigo, players dig into an emerging mystery surrounding the Spirit Stones.
On the combat side, Hell Rising introduces the hoko and shield, a new weapon set for both the Samurai and Ninja Styles that pairs the offense of a short spear with the defense of a shield, right down to flinging the shield at enemies. A new equipment category called the Hundred Demon Realms Picture Scroll also arrives, dropping from enemies as rare loot and requiring a win in an automatically generated battle before it can be equipped. Those battles can be replayed to randomly alter one of a scroll’s special effects while strengthening and customizing it. For anyone up for a third playthrough, the new Enlightened One’s Journey difficulty randomly hands certain enemies a Curse buff that makes them significantly more powerful, with divine-rarity items as the reward for taking them down, plus divine-rarity Grace set bonuses for deeper builds. New Guardian Spirits, Martial Arts, Skills, Ninjutsu, and Onmyo Magic round things out.
When Nioh 3 landed on our top games of February 2026, we called combat the heart of every Nioh game and said we expected this entry’s to be the series’ most robust yet, thanks to the seamless swapping between the Samurai and Ninja Styles. We made a similar note when the release date was announced, comparing the two-style approach to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, except merged into a single character. Hell Rising further leans right into that mechanic. A weapon set designed to work across both styles, plus a difficulty tier built for players who already cleared everything, sounds like an expansion aimed at the people who never put the game down.
