30 Best Samurai Games on PC and Consoles: Open Worlds, Soulslikes, Musou and Strategy Games

Samurai games have long since expanded beyond straightforward historical action. Some offer vast open worlds set in feudal Japan, others turn sword fights into demanding tests of timing, while strategy games place entire clans and armies under the player’s command. This list brings together 30 of the best samurai games on PC and consoles, ranging from open-world adventures and soulslikes to fighting games, large-scale strategies, and stylized indie action. The entries are grouped by genre, making it easier to find a game built around exploration, difficult duels, tactical battles, or fast-paced combat.

The selection is not limited strictly to games about bushi. Titles such as Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun focus partly or entirely on shinobi, but draw on the same historical periods, weapons, and conflicts. Mobile gacha games, anime tie-ins, and board games are excluded. The list includes modern blockbusters, older releases, and smaller projects suited to modest PCs, with games available across PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch.

Open-world is almost the default shape for a serious samurai game: the setting is too rich to squeeze into corridors. In this section you ride through autumn groves and coastal villages, liberate provinces from invaders, train with mentors, and personally choose whether to walk the path of an honest bushi or become the shadow enemies never see coming until the last cut. It's the biggest and most visually opulent block on the list — headlined by Ghost of Yotei and rounded out by Japanese oddities like Way of the Samurai.

Ghost of Tsushima is the flagship of the genre and arguably the most beautiful samurai game ever made. Jin Sakai is the last surviving samurai on Tsushima, the island where Kublai Khan's Mongols landed in 1274. Honest one-on-one duels are hard and fair, but the further you go, the more Jin drifts from the bushi code and becomes the Ghost — sneaking up from behind, choking foes with smoke, hurling poisoned darts. All of it against landscapes people still visit in Photo Mode: bamboo groves, silvery susuki fields swaying in the wind, red temples in the rain. The Steam version of Director's Cut earned 94% positive reviews from nearly 95,000 players.

Ghost of Yotei is a standalone successor to Ghost of Tsushima, released on October 2, 2025 as a PS5 exclusive. Set in 1603, more than 300 years after the original, it follows Atsu, a mercenary hunting the Yotei Six for murdering her family. The Guiding Wind once again replaces a traditional minimap, but the expanded arsenal — including dual katanas, an odachi, a kusarigama, and firearms — gives combat more variety. Critics and gamers praised the art direction and cinematic presentation while noting that the familiar open-world structure makes the sequel feel less fresh than its predecessor. A PC version is no longer expected: according to a March 2026 Bloomberg report, Sony scrapped the port as part of its retreat from bringing first-party single-player games to PC. Unless the company reverses course again, Ghost of Yotei will remain a genuine PS5 exclusive.

Assassin's Creed Shadows dragged the series to feudal Japan for the first time ever — straight into the Sengoku era, 1579. You play two protagonists: Naoe, a kunoichi ninja of the Iga clan, and Yasuke, the historical black samurai serving Oda Nobunaga. Naoe is about shadows and a grappling hook; Yasuke is about open combat, katana, and the naginata polearm — served as two distinct games in one. Seasonal changes on the map, destructible shōji doors, a clan base populated by your allies — Ubisoft actually rebooted the formula. The Steam release landed at 76% positive from 38,000 reviews; press was measured but respectful. In-depth take is in the Assassin's Creed Shadows review.

Rise of the Ronin by Team Ninja drops you into late Bakumatsu — the historical hinge where samurai Japan collided with Perry's black ships and started to crumble. Your unnamed ronin has no clan and picks a side: the shogunate, the restoration forces, or your own code. The open world is smaller than Ubisoft's, but katana combat is the studio's usual grippy stuff — stances, parries, an emphasis on duels. The PC release arrived in March 2025, critics settled around 73 on Metacritic, and Steam reviews are Mixed at 63% from 10,000 players. Even those who bounced off the technical side love the feel of the blade.

Way of the Samurai 4 is that rare Japanese oddity where you're literally "a samurai with no plan": you drift into the port town of Amihama during the Bakumatsu, wander into three faction storylines, seduce, brawl, trade, lose your head — sometimes literally. A single run takes only a couple of hours, but the branching and endings hold up for dozens of replays, and you can forge, sharpen, and name your own katana. Everything is rough around the edges — very much in the spirit of the 2011 PS3 release — but it has a texture almost nothing else has. On Steam it's about $24.99 — practically nothing for that much freedom.

Way of the Samurai 3 is the direct predecessor and in many ways even freer. Same principle: you land in Amana province and decide whom to serve, whom to rob, and which side to back in the war brewing between two clans. The custom katana forging and stance collection are still among the best in the genre. The port is crude, the interface dated, but the price is small — around $19.99 on Steam.

If open worlds are about landscape, this section is about pain. It holds the hardest samurai games ever made: soulslikes where dying is the norm and hardcore action games that demand a perfect parry rhythm. This is where FromSoftware and Team Ninja reinvented the Japanese-sword genre in 2019–2021, and this is where players who are tired of assists, aim helpers, and hints come to be humbled. If you love a punishing duel, the big list of games similar to Dark Souls is a good neighbor.

The definitive samurai game from FromSoftware. Wolf, a one-armed shinobi with a prosthetic grappling arm, serves a young heir of the Ashina clan and has to bring him back at any cost. Hidetaka Miyazaki threw out half the soulslike playbook — RPG progression, loadouts, dodges — and built everything around parries: blades collide in a furious rhythm, you break the enemy's posture and finish with one motion. 88 on Metacritic, 95% positive on Steam from 352,000 reviews — one of the highest ratings of the decade.

Nioh is the one where a European outsider comes to a strange country and, against all logic, belongs. William Adams, a real English navigator, ends up in Sengoku-era Japan and gets pulled into the war between humans and yokai — the local demonic spirits. Team Ninja fused a soulslike with the bloody tempo of Ninja Gaiden: three sword stances, dozens of rare weapon types, Diablo-style loot ranks, and bosses you fight with a plan. 84 on Metacritic and 79% positive — a strong foundation many players started from.

Nioh 2 is a sequel that outdid the original on every front. Your hero is half-human, half-yokai; the demon half lets you shape-shift and dismantle enemies with their own weapons. Progression runs deeper, weapon variety is wider, and Sengoku Japan is painted in its darkest colors. 86 on Metacritic, 87% positive from 50,000 reviews. The three big DLC episodes, notably, pull the story back to the first game's timeline.

Musou is the genre where you singlehandedly mow down hundreds of enemies with fifty grunts on screen at once. Born in Japan, it fits the samurai theme perfectly: real Sengoku warlords, castle sieges, showy super moves. Alongside musou sit the classic Onimusha remasters, the Warriors Orochi crossover, the returning SNK fighter Samurai Shodown, the action-RPG Fate/Samurai Remnant, and a small local-multiplayer classic Samurai Gunn 2 — this section is for players who show up to look good cutting things, not to think.

Samurai Warriors 5 is the leaner reboot of Koei Tecmo's musou series about the Sengoku era. The campaign focuses on young Oda Nobunaga and Akechi Mitsuhide; the art shifts to a lighter ink-and-watercolor stylization, and the combat becomes tighter and less mannequin-like. Fewer than two thousand reviews, but 82% of them positive.

Samurai Warriors 4 DX is the 2024 re-release with the full DLC pack and dozens of playable heroes. Many veterans of the series still call this one the peak — larger than Samurai Warriors 5, with twice as many characters and modes. Metacritic gave it 82, Steam scores 86% positive.

Warriors Orochi 4 is a crossover that throws heroes of Samurai Warriors and Dynasty Warriors into a single fantasy scenario ruled by the serpent demon Orochi. 170 playable characters, a hundred magic moves, endless battles. If you want one giant musou and refuse to choose between Sengoku and Three Kingdoms, this is your game. 86% positive on Steam from 5.6k reviews.

Samurai Shodown is the revival of SNK's cult 1993 fighter, released in 2019 on consoles and June 2021 on PC. Katana duels in 2.5D: 16 warriors from the Tokugawa era, each with their own blade and stance, and a single well-placed cut can decide the round. No sprawling Tekken combos here — only timing and the right moment to attack. 81% positive on Steam from 1.7k reviews.

Onimusha: Warlords Remastered is the 2019 reissue of a 2001 classic — the one where Capcom fused Resident Evil with Kurosawa's samurai films. Samanosuke Akechi, a young warrior with a demon gauntlet, saves a princess and slices through hordes of yokai in the seized Inabayama castle. Retro pacing, fixed cameras, thick Japanese gothic — and a 94% positive Steam score says the classic ages well.

Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny finally got a remaster in spring 2025. As Jubei Yagyu, you avenge your home village, slaughtered by Nobunaga's demons — and the second game is dramatically wider than the first: multiple companions with their own story branches, free-form gift-based dialogue, and a whole relationship system between heroes. 86% positive on Steam.

Fate/Samurai Remnant is an action-RPG by Koei Tecmo and Type-Moon, released on September 28, 2023. The setting is mid-17th-century Edo — the hero, Iori Miyamoto, is drawn into a hidden Holy Grail War alongside his Saber-class Servant. Combat is fast and dance-like, exactly in Team Ninja's wheelhouse: katana combos, parries, Servant super moves. Even without Fate lore knowledge the game works as a standalone samurai action piece set in a Bakumatsu-adjacent era. Metacritic 80, Steam 91% positive from 7,000 reviews.

Samurai Gunn 2 is the small local-multiplayer duel-fighter cult classic — a bushido brawler where each samurai carries a katana and a gun with only three bullets per life. Rounds last seconds; you die in a single hit. Up to four players on one machine, and the online mode has grown up too. 93% positive on Steam from 780 reviews. Early Access, but already excellent.

A samurai is also a general and often a provincial ruler. Strategy and tactics open the theme up wider than any action game: on the Sengoku map you command armies, marry for alliances, build castles, put down peasant revolts, and negotiate marriages with the Imperial court. If you love big global grand-strategy in general, the best strategy games list is a good neighbor.

Total War: Shogun 2 is the gold standard of samurai strategy and, by community consensus, one of the best entries in the whole Total War series. Japan in 1545, a dozen clans, the fight for the title of Shogun: on the campaign map you weave diplomacy and trade, and on the battlefield you personally move legions of ashigaru, yamabushi, and mounted samurai. The battle mode still impresses: thousands of soldiers on screen, dramatic pacing per engagement, banners in the wind. Metacritic 90, Steam 92% from 67,000 reviews.

Shogun: Total War — Collection is the Steam re-release of the first entry in the legendary series from 2000 — the one Creative Assembly used to start Total War in the first place. Tactically it looks unfamiliar after Shogun 2: different units, a different pace, sparse graphics — but you get the source and the celebrated The Mongol Invasion expansion in a single bundle. A good pickup for series fans and history buffs. Steam 89% positive from 1,200 reviews, and only $9.99.

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun is a real-time tactics game in the mold of classic Commandos, except your squad of five is composed of Edo-period specialists: a samurai, a ninja, a marksman with a long-barreled matchlock, a seductress, and a teenage thief. Each has a distinct skillset, noise footprint, and preferred timing to leave the shadows. The job is usually the same: cross patrolled ground, silence a target, and leave unheard. Slow, deliberate, addictive to a fault. 85 on Metacritic, 96% positive on Steam from 38,000 reviews.

Sengoku Jidai: Shadow of the Shogun is a historical wargame about the Sengoku wars by Slitherine — where tactical precision matters more than a slick picture. A hex map, real historical campaigns from 1467–1615, eight factions, and battles with hundreds of units of ashigaru, samurai, and warrior monks. It's a dry piece for a narrow audience, but 85 on Metacritic speaks for itself. Steam 76% from 200 reviews.

Nobunaga's Ambition: Awakening is the current entry in the oldest Japanese strategy series about the Sengoku, running since 1983. Everything here is serious and demonstratively authentic: over 2,200 historical figures, real provinces, diplomacy, economy, military campaigns. The goal is simple and impossible at once — unify Japan under your clan. Niche and unfriendly to newcomers, but fans and Sengoku historians rank it above every Total War. Steam 74% positive.

Mahokenshi is an unusual hybrid: a tabletop hex map plus a Slay-the-Spire-style deckbuilder. You pick one of four samurai mages of the Celestial Islands, build a deck of combat techniques, and slowly cleanse corruption tile by tile. It doesn't offer serious historical samurai atmosphere, but the feudal-Japan aesthetic and card mechanics work well for players tired of big strategy games. Steam 77% positive from 600 reviews.

Small but distinctive projects where the samurai theme comes through a strong visual choice: black-and-white Kurosawa cinema, isometric Japanese villages, Bakumatsu with the real Ryoma Sakamoto, an open-space roguelike, or a neon 2D noir with a katana. This section also includes smaller, less demanding games that run well on older PCs and generally cost less than the major releases above.

Trek to Yomi looks like a forgotten black-and-white Akira Kurosawa film that accidentally became playable. Young samurai Hiroki tracks the bandits who wiped out his village while the Japanese underworld of Yomi seeps in from around every corner. Combat is simple and schematic — three stances, parry, finisher — but every frame belongs on a wall. The game is short, five or six hours, and that's a strength: the mythological story ends exactly where it should. Steam 71% positive.

Like a Dragon: Ishin! is Sega's 2023 remake of an action title where the usual Kiryu Kazuma from Yakuza becomes the historical samurai Ryoma Sakamoto. Setting: 1867, Kyoto during the Bakumatsu, four combat stances from bare fists to katana and revolver, and dozens of mini-games from the flagship series — karaoke, cooking, and gambling parlors. It's Yakuza, only in another century, and it works. Metacritic 80, Steam 81% from 6,000 reviews.

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is Capcom's unusual strategy-action hybrid released on July 18, 2024. During the day you cleanse a corrupted mountain and assign rescued villagers to roles — archer, samurai, monk; at night, wave-based tower defense as the saved peasants protect the priestess Yoshiro from yokai. A ritual dance meets tower defense, wrapped in the silken aesthetic of Japanese Noh theater. 85 on Metacritic, 92% positive on Steam.

Katanaut is a fresh roguelike slasher released on September 10, 2025: an astronaut with a katana cuts through a station overrun by nightmares, and every run rolls a new combination of upgrades and enemies. There's a surprising amount of samurai DNA in it — rhythm work, stances, one-strike one-kill philosophy. 75 on Metacritic, 90% positive on Steam. About $17.99.

Katana ZERO is a small 2D neon-noir where every room resolves in seconds: slow down time, deflect a bullet with the blade, work out the single correct order of moves. Between violent bursts, an unsettling story about controlled drugs, wiped memory, and an old hitman whose past keeps catching up with him. Style, music, and control precision hold this at one of the most cult indie hits of the last few years: 83 on Metacritic and 98% positive on Steam from 75,000 reviews — one of the highest scores in the whole list. Only $14.99.

For Honor makes the list for one thing — its samurai faction. Ubisoft's multiplayer action pits three schools of combat against each other: knights, vikings, and samurai (Kensei, Nobushi, Shugoki, and others). Fighting is built on blade stances and parries, and the best sessions still run as one-on-one duels. The game is almost in its tenth year and still alive thanks to a big community: 162,000 reviews on Steam, 69% positive. Metacritic put it at 76 at launch.

HAYAI is a tiny minimalist roguelike about a samurai reduced to pure motion: quick runs, split-second choices, a tight arena, a boss at the end. Everything is stripped-back and hand-drawn; a session lasts a few minutes, which is exactly right. Early Access, but 98% positive on Steam from 244 reviews and a $1.99 price make it the cheapest samurai entry point on the list.

The highest rating among the big titles on this list goes to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice — 88 on Metacritic and 95% positive on Steam from 352,000 reviews. Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut competes on mass love and visuals with 94% positive on Steam. If you want strategy, the winner is Total War: Shogun 2 with 90 on Metacritic; for indie, Katana ZERO with 98% positive on Steam.

Yes. Trek to Yomi, Katana ZERO, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Katanaut, HAYAI, Sengoku Jidai: Shadow of the Shogun, both Way of the Samurai games, Samurai Gunn 2, and Mahokenshi run comfortably even on integrated graphics. Shogun: Total War — Collection and Total War: Shogun 2 are playable on a modest rig if you reduce battle unit counts.

In 2024: Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut on PC, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, and Samurai Warriors 4 DX. In 2025: Assassin's Creed Shadows, Rise of the Ronin on PC, Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny remaster, Ghost of Yotei for PS5, and Katanaut.

As of July 2026, the most recent titles are Katanaut (September 10, 2025), Ghost of Yotei (October 2, 2025), and Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny (May 22, 2025). Coming next is Capcom's Onimusha: Way of the Sword, currently targeted for September 2026.

Open world is present in Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yotei, Assassin's Creed Shadows, and Rise of the Ronin. The largest and most detailed belong to Ghost of Tsushima and AC Shadows; Rise of the Ronin's world is smaller but has looser combat. Way of the Samurai is not an open world but a dense port-town hub you roam between districts.

Yes — several. The closest by tone and structure are Ghost of Yotei (its direct sequel), Assassin's Creed Shadows (open-world feudal Japan, dual protagonists), and Rise of the Ronin (Bakumatsu open world by Team Ninja). If you want the honor-duel feel without the map, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Nioh 2 are the next step; for a stealthier route, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun.

Yes. The flagship is Samurai Shodown, the revival of SNK's cult series — 16 Tokugawa-era warriors, 2.5D katana duels, one clean cut can settle a round. For local-multiplayer bushido brawling there's Samurai Gunn 2, and for multiplayer action with a samurai faction — For Honor. Card-strategy fans get Mahokenshi — The Samurai Deckbuilder.

The Xbox Game Pass catalog rotates frequently, so specific titles come and go. Check the current lineup in your Xbox app; over the last couple of years the pass has hosted stints of Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess (Capcom day-one), Like a Dragon: Ishin!, Nioh 2, and For Honor.

Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yotei are PlayStation exclusives. Sekiro, Nioh 1 and 2, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Samurai Shodown, and Warriors Orochi 4 shipped on PlayStation and Xbox. Rise of the Ronin is on PS5 and PC only, no Xbox version. Onimusha: Warlords Remastered, Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny, and Samurai Warriors 5 hit PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. Total War: Shogun 2 is PC only (Windows/macOS) — the series never came to consoles.

Which samurai game do you keep coming back to, and what exactly makes it stick? Drop it in the comments and share why.

If the samurai theme grabbed you and you want more blade work and Eastern discipline, here are five projects from adjacent genres. Formally they aren't about samurai, but the DNA — precise blade work, stances, parries, and attention to the ritual of combat — is unmistakable.

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty by Team Ninja officially leaves Japan for Three Kingdoms-era China, but the spirit is the same parry-focused school, only faster and more aggressive than Nioh. Rhythm matters more than stats here: a well-timed deflect breaks the boss's morale, and a broken morale opens anything. Metacritic 79, Steam 50% from 29,000 reviews (blame the rough launch port; patches have fixed a lot). Fans of Sekiro and Nioh still praise the combat itself.

Sifu isn't about samurai, it's about kung fu, but by the feel of combat it lands closest to the samurai section. A young master of Chinese martial arts avenges his father across five killers, ages with every death, and learns to win not with force but with a dance-like rhythm of dodges and parries. 81 on Metacritic, 92% positive on Steam.

Absolver is an online martial-arts action game where you assemble your own style from dozens of strikes and stances and fight in PvP arenas or co-op dungeons. Meditative, a little strange, occasionally brilliant. Metacritic 75, Steam 73% positive.

Bloodroots is a berserk 2D revenge action where anything on the ground becomes a weapon: axes, ladders, carrots. The tempo is so tight a fight against ten people is over in three seconds. It isn't directly samurai, but the "one strike" and style-points feel are cut from the same cloth. 76 on Metacritic, 90% positive on Steam.

Hellish Quart is a young physics-based sword fighting game from a former CD Projekt RED animator. The combatants aren't samurai but 17th-century European fencing schools; the principle is the same: one missed stance and you're done. Early Access, but 96% positive on Steam.