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Ever since its re-reveal, Nioh has constantly been compared to the Dark Souls series - and to be fair, it's easy to see why. Koei Tecmo's upcoming title is an action role-playing game that demands patience, caution, and fast reflexes, after all. It's also got a suitably dark and menacing feel to it.

At least Nioh director Fumihiko Yasuda doesn't shy away from admitting there are similarities, though. Speaking to Destructoid, Yasuda states that "in terms of gaming, Nioh was influenced by Bloodborne and [the] Souls series". More surprisingly, he continues: "For RPG/hack 'n slash elements, especially the looting system, we looked to Diablo as well as Borderlands." Sounds like a pretty good mix, doesn't it? "As for samurai depiction, we took hints from movies such Lone Wolf and Cub by Kenji Misumi and Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa, as well as numerous Japanese period pieces," Yasuda concludes.

Apparently, Yasuda describes Nioh as "masocore", which is a term born of masochistic and hardcore. "Nioh is meant to be a masocore game so during development, we consciously avoided making the game easy," he says. In other words, prepare to die.

For a long time now, the PlayStation 4 exclusive has seemed very promising, and it's interesting to see someone as high up the food chain as Yasuda go right ahead and talk about the games that so clearly influenced it. Nioh is out early next month on the 8th February, but will you be picking it up? Take a swipe in the comments section below.

[source destructoid.com]