Check out the new contents of upcoming Nioh DLC Defiant Honor shown at Famitsu

After having previously released the Dragon of the North, Koei Tecmo Games is gearing up to release the second DLC batch for Nioh, titled Defiant Honor. This DLC will depict the first part of the Osaka Campaign, which will culminate in the upcoming third and final DLC Bloodshed's End.

This week's Weekly Famitsu magazine also has a detailed coverage of the upcoming DLC, which we have translated and summarized below for your convenience.

Characters

• Sanada Yukimura (voiced by Shinichiro Miki)
  Toyotomi's brave general who is said to be most feared by Tokugawa Ieyasu. In actual history, during the Osaka Winter Campaign, he built the Sanadamaru at the south side of Osaka castle which would be its weak point, and he repelled the attacking Tokugawa army. The two guardian spirits seen on his back are Enku, a Qilin covered in flames, and Janome-cho, which he inherited from his father-in-law Otani Yoshitsugu who was slain at Sekigahara.
• Sarutobi Sasuke (voiced by Junichi Suwabe)
  A ninja who becomes the leader of Sanada Ten Braves, which consists of Yukimura's ten loyal retainers. After learning various martial arts and ninjutsu's at numerous provinces, he met Yukimura at Togakure-ryu village nearby Ueda and became his retainer. He does not have a guardian spirit, but he can fight by using the new weapon Tonfa as well as controlling Koga-style ninjutsu.
• Sasaki Kojiro
  The swordsman famous for fighting Miyamoto Musashi at Ganryu island will appear in the newly added sub missions. He uses an Odachi sword, but the movements will be faster than ordinary Odachi users.

Guardian Spirits

Other than Sanada Yukimura's Enku, it is also confirmed that Nurarihyon, Date Masamune's second guardian spirit which originally belonged to Katakura Kagetsuna's father Katakura Kojuro, will be also added as a usable guardian spirit in Defiant Honor.

There is no news yet on whether Janome-cho will be also available or not. And although the first DLC Dragon of the North had 3 new guardian spirits, it is still unknown how many guardian spirits will be added in Defiant Honor either.

Maps

• Osaka Winter Campaign
  Osaka Castle is surrounded by the sea and rivers in three directions. However, its south has plains where it would be easy to deploy a large army. To deal with Tokugawa's main force which should be attacking from the south, Yukimura prepared a large dry moat on the castle exteriors and built the Sanadamaru.
  There are towers at Osaka Castle that will shoot fire arrows if they spot William. The arrows are very painful even with +10 Divine armors. So William will need to proceed carefully by hiding behind sandbags as a shield while heading towards placed cannons to shoot down those towers.
  At the end of this stage, William will fight Sarutobi Sasuke as the boss. His tonfa let him do both quick combo attacks and solid defense, and he also can use annoying ninjutsu attacks.
• Sanadamaru
  A branch castle created from modifying a temple located at a high place. While Yukimura makes use of the height advantage by heightening its defense with a dry moat, he also expanded the underground tunnels of the temple to stretch a communication web. The latter is called Sanada's Loophole, which is used by his ninjas to confuse invaders.
  William will fight the Sanada Ten Braves here, and the stage will culminate in a boss fight with Sanada Yukimura. He has two Guardian Spirits just like Date Masamune and will be very powerful when he activates Living Weapon.
• Mt. Inari
  A holy region where the Inari Okami was said to have descended on, and the main headquarters of Inari shrines located all over Japan. Foxes which normally ought to be the deity's familiars turn into yokais which will attack William.
  This stage will be used in sub missions, where the yokai foxes can create illusions that will block William's progress.

New Weapon & Jutsu

Defiant Honor will see the addition of a new weapon type, Tonfa. It can launch numerous attacks and is good in depleting enemy stamina, although it has a drawback of having short reach. When a certain Tonfa skill is learned, William can do a special step when doing Ki Pulse, which as fewer gap than an ordinary Ki Pulse, allowing William to maintain close distance against his enemy. Sasuke's Tonfa will also have an exclusive gimmick of launching explosives.

There will be also new Ninjutsu and Onmyo Magic added, one of them being a wind Onmyo Magic that lets the user shoot wind arrows. These new skills should bring new strategies into the PvP battles.

New Difficulty Level

Finally, it is also revealed that Defiant Honor will have a brand-new difficulty level called Way of the Enlightenment. This much harder difficulty will be unlocked only after clearing the previous Way of the Demon difficulty which was added in Dragon of the North.

Nioh's second DLC Defiant Honor will be released on July 25th worldwide. If you are interested in playing it, be sure to also watch a new live stream event on the day before, which will have the world premiere gameplay footage of this DLC batch.