The Real History
Behind Nioh 3

The word "Sengoku" literally means "Warring States" — 戦国時代. If you know your Chinese history, that name is borrowed directly from China's own Warring States period, the Zhanguo Shidai. Same characters. Same chaos.

It starts with the Onin War in 1467 応仁の乱 — a succession dispute in Kyoto 京都 that spirals into a decade of urban warfare. By the time the fighting stops, central authority in Japan has completely collapsed. The shogun is a figurehead. The old feudal order is shattered. Hundreds of regional warlords — the daimyo 大名 — carve out domains through war, alliance, and betrayal.

This is the world where three men emerge as Japan's "Great Unifiers."

The entire Nioh series is built on this arc. Each game covers a different phase of Japan's unification:

Nioh 3 shows what happens after Sekigahara — the fragile peace, the succession crisis, and the echoes of war that refuse to die. Here are the key dates that shape everything:

The person who saved Takechiyo's future? His wet nurse — Kasuga no Tsubone 春日局. In the game, she appears as Saito Fuku 斎藤福, your Onmyo magic mentor. In real life, she traveled to Ieyasu's retirement residence in Sunpu 駿府 and made the case directly to the old shogun.

Saito Fuku / Kasuga no Tsubone (Nioh 3)

The game takes a real succession crisis and turns it into a supernatural epic. The names, the relationships, the stakes — all grounded in history. The yokai are the fiction. The family drama is the truth.

He was called the Tiger of Kai — 甲斐の虎. His rivalry with Uesugi Kenshin 上杉謙信, the Dragon of Echigo 越後の龍, produced five legendary battles at Kawanakajima 川中島. But for the Nioh 3 story, it's his campaign against Tokugawa Ieyasu that matters.

Shingen didn't ride alone. His inner circle — the Takeda Four Heavenly Kings 武田四天王 — were legends in their own right. In Nioh 3, all four appear as boss encounters. That's a level of historical completeness most action games don't even attempt.

Yamagata Masakage (Nioh 3) · Yamagata Masakage by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1848 (MFA Boston)

Yamagata Masakage — Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1848 (public domain)

Baba Nobuharu (Nioh 3)

Baba Nobuharu — Utagawa Kuniyoshi (National Diet Library Japan, public domain)

Naitō Masatoyo — Utagawa Kuniyoshi (British Museum, public domain)

Kōsaka Masanobu — Utagawa Kuniyoshi (public domain)

Masakage's Crimson Army was so feared that after Nagashino, Tokugawa Ieyasu adopted the red armour scheme for his own elite cavalry — wearing the identity of a defeated enemy as a trophy.

Baba fought in over 70 battles and was never once wounded — the exact same legend as Honda Tadakatsu on the opposite side. Nioh 3 quietly pits these two "invincible warriors" against each other through you. The designers knew exactly what they were doing.

At Nagashino in 1575, Baba stayed behind as rear guard, buying Katsuyori time to escape. Then he turned his horse around, rode back into the Oda army alone, and died fighting. The Immortal's streak ended — but only because he chose to end it himself.

Naitō Masatoyo was the cavalry commander who shattered Honda Tadakatsu's right flank at Mikatagahara — the strike that began the collapse. At Nagashino, he led one of the doomed charges directly into Nobunaga's gunfire and was killed. He reportedly knew it was suicide but charged anyway, because Katsuyori had given the order.

Kōsaka Masanobu earned the nickname Nige Danjō — "the Fleeing Danjō" — not for cowardice, but for masterful tactical retreats that preserved Takeda forces when others would have lost them. He's also credited as the original author of the Kōyō Gunkan 甲陽軍鑑 — the very military chronicle that records much of what we know about every battle in this chapter.

The stage was set. All four Heavenly Kings had swept through Tōtōmi Province ahead of Shingen's main force. Masakage's Crimson Army seized Yoshida and Futamata Castles. Ieyasu had 8,000 men at Hamamatsu and 3,000 Oda reinforcements. Against the advice of every single one of his generals, he chose to fight.

Takeda Shingen in Nioh 3 — Koei Tecmo

Battle of Mikatagahara — tactical map (1935)

Ieyasu after Mikatagahara — painted as a reminder

Modern historians debate whether Ieyasu actually commissioned it — the painting may be from the Edo period, and some scholars question whether it depicts Ieyasu at all. But the story itself tells you everything about how Japan remembers this man. After Mikatagahara, he became the most patient, most cautious leader in Japan. He outlived Shingen, outlived Nobunaga, outlived Hideyoshi — and at Sekigahara in 1600, he won the battle that gave him the country. The man who escaped with five soldiers became the founder of a dynasty that lasted 265 years. Sometimes the worst defeat of your life is the one that makes everything after it possible.

Without Shingen, his son Katsuyori 勝頼 led the Takeda to destruction at Nagashino 長篠 in 1575, where massed arquebus fire annihilated the famous Takeda cavalry. The Tiger of Kai was stopped not by a battlefield defeat, but by his own mortality.

The Deer Antler Helm

Made of lightweight lacquered paper-mache. Legend says a deer showed him a safe river crossing — he adopted the antlers in gratitude. Actual armor (Important Cultural Property of Japan).

Tonbo-giri 蜻蛉切

One of the Three Great Spears of Japan. A dragonfly landed on the blade and was sliced in half by its own weight. The actual spear, Muromachi period.

But here's the most human part of Tadakatsu's story — something no game can capture.

Honda Tadakatsu retired to Kuwana Castle 桑名城 and took up woodcarving. One day, while carving, he cut his own hand. It was the first time in his entire life he had ever bled from a blade.

Seeing his own blood, the man who had survived 57 battles took it as an omen. He believed his time had come. Within weeks, at age 63, he willed himself to die.

The warrior who surpassed death itself — brought down not by any enemy, but by a piece of wood and the weight of his own legend.

And here's something Nioh 3 does that I love. After spending the entire Sengoku chapter fighting alongside Tadakatsu — watching him hold the line at Mikatagahara, hearing the legends — the game gives you the option to fight him yourself. He appears as an optional boss in Hamamatsu. No corrupted yokai form. No dark transformation. Just Honda Tadakatsu, the man, with his deer-antler helmet and his Dragonfly Cutter. If you want to see whether the legend is true — whether you can put a scratch on the man who never bled in 57 battles — the game simply says: go ahead and try.

The nickname "Oni no Hanzo" 鬼の半蔵 — Demon Hanzo — didn't come from sneaking around in shadows. He earned it at the Battle of Mikatagahara for distinguished combat, commanding an Iga unit of 150 men.

Hokusai Manga Vol. 6 — Katsushika Hokusai (public domain)

His greatest achievement did involve those Iga connections. In 1582, after Akechi Mitsuhide 明智光秀 assassinated Oda Nobunaga at Honno-ji 本能寺, Ieyasu was stranded near Osaka 大坂. Hanzo mobilized 200-300 Iga warriors and escorted Ieyasu through dangerous mountain passes to safety.

This is the Iga Crossing 伊賀越え — arguably the single most consequential "ninja" operation in Japanese history. If Ieyasu had been killed, the Tokugawa Shogunate 徳川幕府 never happens. 265 years of history — erased.

The pop culture ninja — silent, emotionless, deadly — couldn't be further from the real man.

Before we tally the scorecard, there are two women in Nioh 3 worth slowing down for. Because the Sengoku period wasn't only a story of warlords and warriors — and Team Ninja knew that.

Her clan was based in Iinoya 井伊谷, in the Hamamatsu region of Tōtōmi Province 遠江国 — the exact same territory where Nioh 3's Sengoku chapter unfolds. She allied with Tokugawa Ieyasu to resist Takeda Shingen's invasion. That's not creative license. That's exactly what she did in history.

She received a full NHK Taiga drama in 2017 — Naotora: The Lady Warlord — telling you exactly how significant her story is in Japan's cultural memory. Historians still debate whether the records are accurate or were confused with a male retainer of the same name, but the tradition of the female lord endures.

She didn't go through channels to save Takechiyo — she went over everyone's head and made her case directly to Ieyasu. No magic. No guardian spirits. Just conviction and a direct appeal to power. The game turns her into a magical protector who dies for her ward. The reality is almost more impressive.