If the current trailer is any indication of Nioh 2’s development, it looks like Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja’s upcoming successor to the first Nioh will have a closed alpha test from May 24th to June 2nd, 2019. Sadly, the test is for a limited pool of PS4 players.

Team Ninja sent out a tweet stating that some PS4 users are invited to take part in the Nioh 2 closed alpha test to help gather feedback. Additionally, more info is set to drop by the team in the future:

https://twitter.com/TeamNINJAStudio/status/1131228228868292608

In the meantime, you can check out the new trailer that shows off Nioh 2 gameplay and the closed alpha test launch date thanks to PlayStation Europe:

According to Nioh 2 director Fumihiko Yasuda during a 2018 interview, the following words were extracted from the interview via YouTube’s transcript:

“So my goal for Nioh 2 will be a proper evolution, a natural evolution, not a dramatic change, not obviously deteriorate, but what is — because in the first title, although we were very happy with how it was received, but there were things that we could not accomplished at the same time. I would like to strengthen what we did well, at the same time fix some of the issues that couldn’t be done in time. So, yeah, that’s what I like to see happen in Nioh 2.”

Moreover, the conversation shifted over to Yokai and how players will be able to experience different enemies and battles types in Nioh 2:

“Players can probably tell that the next protagonist actually possesses the power of yokai. We’ve seen samurai-versus-yokai and samurai-versus-samurai before, but this time around we’re going to have yokai-versus-samurai and yokai-versus-yokai as well, so you’ll be able to feel some of the yokai skills and moves, which should bring the action system to the next level.”

The last bit from the interview that featured Yasuda highlights character customization. You can read over what Nioh 2 is set to have right here:

“We did two demos before the first Nioh was launched, and we’re truly grateful for all the feedback from our fans. But having said that, after the game launched, one of the biggest requests that we had was character creation. And that’s something we’re going to implement in Nioh 2. Players will definitely be able to customize all the details, including gender and race.”

If you want to defy death and help William on his journey through a mystical take on feudal Japan before the sequel, the first Nioh is available to pick up right now for PC and PS4.