Expert advice on how to die less frequently in Nioh’s new The Abyss mode

Our third and final DLC update for Nioh came out earlier this week and I wanted to take this time to spotlight our unique and expansive new mode featured in Bloodshed’s End: The Abyss.

I’m sure many of you are curious to know more about this exciting new feature. First of all, I can tell you that this world is unlike anything you’ve encountered in your journey through the Nioh experience so far.

The Abyss is an ethereal world made up of innumerable floors. Each floor of The Abyss has six areas that you are free to seek out in any order.

These consist of ‘Terra Firma’, your starting point, four ‘planes’ for you to complete and an expanse called the Crucible, where a perilous boss awaits. If you defeat a boss in the Crucible, you will have the option to either leave The Abyss or proceed to the next floor. Enemies will get stronger as you advance through the floors, naturally.

But to aid you with the increasing difficulties, you will be allowed to acquire items of greater power. In addition, you can summon up to two other visitors providing you with a 3 player co-op situation to help you negotiate the brutal challenges. You see, we are not completely merciless to your plight, samurai.

As you get stuck into The Abyss over the weekend, we wanted to give you a few bits of advice to aid you:

1. While you can proceed directly to the boss in the Crucible from the start, you will be inflicted with up to four kinds of abnormal status effects – one for each plane you’ve left uncompleted. Work through the planes first to battle the boss at your best.
2. You may find defiled items in The Abyss. These are pieces of equipment with a special effect that masks their properties and prevents them from being equipped. Defeat a boss and leave The Abyss and your defiled items will transform into regular equipment. However, the further you progress through floors in The Abyss, the stronger your defiled items will ultimately be.
3. Be very careful to protect your Guardian Spirit. If your Guardian Spirit is not present and you are defeated in The Abyss, you will not only fail the mission but lose all of your Amrita and defiled items – shrines in The Abyss will not let you call back a Guardian Spirit!
4. Whilst enemies get stronger on each floor of The Abyss, your progress will be recorded as you go on. Therefore, if you leave, you will be able to choose starting from a completed floor rather than starting from scratch each time.

In our opinion, The Abyss is a perfect bookend to compliment the experience and conclude our voyage into the Sengoku period.

This bold new feature will allow you to continue challenging yourselves in a perpetual skirmish against seemingly endless battlegrounds. It is designed to provide you with lasting enjoyment far beyond the main campaign.

Having said that, there’s much more that awaits you in The Abyss, but I don’t want to spoil all the details before you descent into this hellish adventure.

Good luck and I hope to see you again, samurai.