Dengeki Online held a christmas special stream on December 24, with some gameplay for various games, including Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja's upcoming Nioh 2. The gameplay sequence revealed the Battle of Anegawa stage and a new boss called Magara Naotaka. Nioh 2 producer Fumihiko Yoshida was on stream and commented on the gameplay.

This Nioh 2 gameplay sequence also shows us the game had some menus and graphic user interface changes compared to the last beta test in November, which still used certain elements from the first game. The gameplay sequence most notably shows a boss battle against Mataka Naotora, a warrior who became an ice youkai.  The whole Battle of Anegawa stage seen in the sequence is frozen because of that boss's influence. During the battle we also see the world going monochrome at some points, that's when the boss forces a transition into Tokoyami, the Dark Realm where youkai resides. This puts the player into a disadvantage unless they transform into their youkai form. This gameplay gimmick reminds me of Tokusatsu shows like Sharivan every single time.

You can read more on Nioh 2 with our previous coverage, most notably how Koei Tecmo teased William might be back in the game.

The gameplay sequence is embedded below at the correct timestamp. The sequence was played by Shu, a Japanese game writer who knows his stuff about Nioh. The whole stream was MCed by Mami Yamashita, a seiyuu at Aoni Pro who mostly does these kinds of events and streams instead of voicing characters. She also participated in Miss Yakuza 5 back in 2012, became the Sapporo representative and appeared in the game in the Food Reporter sidequest. Nowadays, Mami Yamashita most notably handles the monthly Sakura Taisen streams for Project Sakura Wars, which we're doing a translated playthrough of.

Nioh 2 will be out on March 13, 2020, on PS4. You can preorder it on Amazon to support DualShockers.