Working out how to unlock parry in Nioh 3 will be a great addition to your offensive and defensive capabilities. Unlike Sekiro, the parry in Nioh 3 is purely defensive in that it doesn’t damage enemy Ki (stamina) so it never leads to a stagger and a Grapple attack. It does, however, give you Ki regen and Arts ability energy, letting you be aggressive and deal more damage. It’s also more efficient than regular blocking purely in terms of Ki cost

If you want to unlock this Samurai ability, you can actually do it almost immediately—in fact, it can be the very first skill you unlock. All that said, here’s how to get the parry ability in Nioh 3.

How to get parry in Nioh 3

To acquire the parry ability in Nioh 3, you’ll first have to unlock the “Deflect” skill from the Samurai tree. You can do this once you complete the prologue/tutorial section, beat Yamagata Masakage, and arrive in the open world Warring States period map with Honda Tadakatsu.

When you arrive, head up the hill to the top, where the title sequence will play, then descend the path down the hill towards the Prospect Hill shrine—keep an eye on the right side of the path for a corpse you can loot, giving you one Samurai’s Lock, which you’ll need to purchase the skill.

All you need to do to unlock Deflect is simply:

1. Press start to enter the menu
2. Cycle along to Acquire Martial Arts/Ninjutsu
3. Open the Samurai tree at the top
4. Purchase the Deflect skill—the first on the right side of the tree

Now you can parry attacks by pressing the guard button, F on keyboard or left bumper on controller, just before you get hit, Sekiro-style. Be aware that you can’t deflect glowing red Break Attacks—these you’ll have to Burst Break by pressing R on keyboard or RT on controller.

Deflecting an attack successfully gives you Ki regen and a lot of Arts ability energy, though the key difference to a game like Sekiro, is that it doesn’t damage enemy Ki, therefore you can’t use it for an entire fight as a method to stagger a boss and get a Grapple attack. It’s more meant to be used as a defensive ability that is more Ki efficient if you master it, and will let you use Arts much more than if you were simply attacking to regen energy.