Nioh's weird multiplayer has always been one of the most unique quirks of the Soulslike-cum-masocore series. I'm not talking about the needlessly complicated suite of co-op options that pals can use to run through the game together, I'm talking more about the asynchronous multiplayer that's woven into the DNA of the series itself. If you wander out into the 'open field' of Nioh 3, for example, you will find red graves littered around the area. Each of these marks a place where a fellow player has died - and inspecting it will tell you the bloody fate they suffered.

Similarly to the Souls games, these markers are like phantom hands from waylaid travellers on the same path as you, reaching out across time and space to say 'watch out, friend, dangerous road ahead'. The difference in Nioh, thanks to the sadistic machinations over at Team Ninja, is that these hands aren't just designed to inform, but also inflict. Summoning a spirit (or a revenant, to give it its proper in-game name) from one of these 'bloody graves' lets you fight another human player, exactly as they were when they died.

Over my time in Nioh 3 (when I was playing pre-launch, with a more barren server), I came to form relationships with some of these doomed spectres: the same names would crop up again and again, and I'd soon learn that one person had trouble with the hulking oni tucked away behind walls, whilst another was often victim to high edges and watery precipices. It's a small thing, but it adds an element of player-directed storytelling to the game, a very human touch to the demon-filled wastelands that make up historical Japan.

Better yet, I managed to complete at least two armour sets by vanquishing the unsettled ghosts of other long-dead players. Early in the game, I earned three pieces of rare 'Crimson General' gear from a decent boss drop. In the next area, I sniffed out as many 'bloody graves' as I could, and managed to complete the full 'Pride of the Crimson Army' set - complete with high-powered odachi, my Samurai weapon of choice - that carried me through easily until the mid-game.

Later, fancying my luck at 'bloody grave' loot again, I topped up my collection of Ninja gear in the game's final area. Given that I ended up using the Ninja in 80 percent of my encounters (yes, really, I think its back attack damage scaling and utility when it comes to ki depletion is out of this world!), having a set as good as 'Devious Loyalty' and its Skill-based attack scaling for the final run of battles was a life-saver.

That Team Ninja gives you the option to tackle 'bloody graves' and their restless revenants instead of grinding against the same bosses or 'battle scrolls' (level select, in common parlance) has always been a fun quirk of the series. But thanks to the open-ended nature of Nioh 3, I found myself even more compelled to summon from 'bloody graves' whenever I could: some people might be outfitted with items more commonly dropped across the map, for instance, and you can easily put together high-powered sets from pilfered loot after just a few minutes of experimentation.

But the usefulness of Nioh's peculiar asynchronous multiplayer goes beyond build-crafting. If you deviate slightly off the beaten path (or engage in a little bit of back-tracking), you'll find a blue grave near most major bosses. This is known as a 'benevolent grave', and interacting with it will summon a friendly NPC to help you out until either its health runs out, or a generous timer ticks down. Now, engaging multiple enemies at once in Nioh is a death sentence, usually, so having some NPC fodder to attract enemy attention or help you thin out the herd can trivialise even some of the more demanding bosses (here's looking at you, Takeda Shingen).

Team Ninja has placed a decent number of its own revenants and benevolents around the game, but now over 70,000 people are playing Nioh 3 on Steam alone, you're all going to get to experience the game at peak power: absolutely brimming with fool-hardy deaths, generous player-placed ghosts to help with touch mini-bosses or big bosses, and an absolute bonanza of character builds to help see you through the game's myriad historical eras.

Just be careful. I, so often, got cocky. I'd face down an unexpected ambush from a one-eyed oni, or an enki, or a horde of skeleton soldiers, and see a red grave. "Stomped to death by Gaki Chief", it'd say. "You fool, you idiot!" I'd cry to myself, and summon them, thinking to nick all this clown's items before riding off into the sunset, plunder in-hand. On more occasions than I'd care to count, I would over-exert myself against a well-levelled human foe, find myself exhausted, and summarily get cut down by a grapple move that would kill me in one blow. Oh, the humility. Fittingly for a game like Nioh, I would continue this spiral of death - assumedly - as someone would find my grave on the floor, and summon me hoping for my loot. I just hope my unsent, vengeful spirit had enough nous to execute that unsuspecting player, in turn.

You can complete Nioh 3, of course, without engaging with this mechanic at all. But it very much feels like its part of the game, a nice way to show you how failure is baked into the whole experience of Nioh: you die so that you may live again, you are cut down by more powerful samurai so that you may learn to deflect, to dodge, to overpower and overcome. Seeing failure naturalised so readily - and so prolifically - across the map emboldens you, encourages you. "I won't be just another red grave for my enemies to rob," you tell yourself, as you grit your teeth and go up against your rival brother for the fifteenth time that evening. "I will come out on top this time, I'll show them. I'll show them all."

And then one day, you do. And you lay a blue grave in front of the boss to tell those that come after that there is hope, after all. They've just got to trust in you.

Note from the author: Please always summon the character 'Guilthound' if you see their benevolent grave. Thank you.