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Review: Nioh's Defiant Honor expansion will keep challenging players
Mon, 31st Jul 2017
FYI, this story is more than a year old

It goes without saying that Nioh is one of the hardest games you will ever play. Well the new Defiant Honor DLC will give you an even bigger challenge.

Anyway, Defiant Honor is the second paid DLC pack released for Nioh and it takes place directly after the events of the Dragon of the North DLC. William is on his way to Osaka Castle to deal with some unfinished business.

Much like the first DLC, the Defiant Honor DLC comes with a wealth of content. This includes several main missions plus at least six new sub missions. One of the main missions will be very challenging though...

The first main mission is arguably one of the hardest in the entire game. This is because it takes place outside Osaka Castle on a battlefield. Your goal is to get inside Osaka Castle, but the enemy forces will keep shooting fiery arrows at you.

The barrage of flaming arrows will kill you quickly and it can be hard to navigate your way through the battlefield if you don't know where you are going. You can hide behind cover and under trenches, although this is easier said than done.  If you manage to get past the first difficult mission, the second one takes place inside some caves that guide you to the Osaka Castle grounds. There are lots of enemies for you to kill. Not to mention new enemy types include dogs now! The DLC includes two new boss fights that aren't too difficult to kill. If you have Kunai (throwing knives), the fights are relatively short and easy. The story is still not concluded so this means more DLC might be on the way very soon.

It's worth mentioning you shouldn't play this DLC unless you have levelled up. You need to be at least level 200 in order to complete the missions with ease. If you have not finished the main Nioh game yet, don't bother trying as you will struggle a lot.

The DLC also includes an even harder difficulty setting called Way of the Wise. This difficulty is not accessible until you have finished Way of the Demon. You do have to play the main campaign over and over again, but it's a cool challenge if you are good enough.

Overall, the Defiant Honor DLC offers a similar quantity of content seen in the previously released Dragon of the North DLC. If you are a hardcore fan of Nioh, it's worth buying. However, if you haven't even finished the main game, you should stay away as it's way too hard if you are underpowered.  Verdict: 8/10