Nioh: Customization Options Guide | Hair, Beards, Armor & Disguises

You don’t make a custom character in Nioh, but you can still change plenty of aspects of his appearance.

As you progress, you’ll gain the ability to swap out fancy hairstyles, add period-inspired facial hair, and alter the appearance of your armor sets. You can also earn special disguises that completely change your appearance — it doesn’t matter what gear you equip, when a disguise is selected, you retain that cosmetic disguise.

There’s a lot of nifty stuck to unlock, so we’re going to discuss every bit of customization you can access in Nioh with each section below.

Customization Options Guide | Hair, Beards, Armor & Disguises

There are four major points of customization available in Nioh — hair, beards, armor appearance, and disguises. Instead of making your character at the start of the game, you’ll need to unlock or purchase all of these options later in the game. In the following sections, you’ll find step-by-step instructions explaining how to access each type of customization.

Hair & Beards Customization – How To Unlock

As you spend money at the Blacksmith, you’ll increase your Patronage Level, which unlocks new weapons, armor, and features as you rise up the ranks. As you unlock Patronage Points, you can exchange those points for new tabs in the Blacksmith menu. One of those tabs is the Barber — where you can purchase new hairstyles and beards.

The barber tab is unlocked at the Blacksmith when you spend Patronage Points.
- After purchasing enough items, you’ll earn 1 Patronage Point.
- Press [Triangle] while in the Blacksmith menu to talk to Tome.
- Select “I have a request for Tome.”
- Select “Unlock Barber Menu” — It costs 1 Patronage Point.

Now you’ll be able to select the Barber Menu from the Blacksmith. All hair customization costs gold to purchase, and can be changed at any time. None of your changes are permanent.

Unlocking (and purchasing hair from the Barber Menu) will unlock the Fashionista trophy.

Armor / Weapon Appearance – How To Unlock

You can customize gear in Nioh to make it look like OTHER gear. It sounds strange, but you can essentially swap the appearance only — all the stats are retained, making this a purely cosmetic choice.

If there’s armor you like for defense, but hate how it looks, you can alter the appearance with the Refashion option at the Blacksmith.

Change armor or weapon appearance from the Blacksmith.
- Place the armor or weapon you want to change in the top slot.
- Place the armor or weapon you want to copy the appearance of in the bottom slot.
- Depending on your selections, the Refashioning Cost will change.

You can change the appearance of swords, make light armor look like heavy armor (or vice versa) without changing any of the altered item’s stats — it is a purely cosmetic change.

Changing the appearance of armor or weapons will unlock the Refashion trophy.

Disguises – How To Unlock

Disguises lock your appearance, making it so any new armor equipped doesn’t change the select “look” — think of it like a cosmetic armor option. Equipped armor still changes you stats, but your in-game look will remain the same.

Disguises are purchased from the Hidden Teahouse.
- Disguises (and other items) in the Hidden Teahouse cost Glory to purchase.
- The Hidden Teahouse will unlock after completing the “Spider Nest Castle” mission.
- Disguises are available in the “Transform” tab in the Trade menu.

Glory is a special currency that’s earned by killing Revenants — the AI-controlled corpses of dead players. Look for red grave markers to find Revenant spawn locations.

The cheapest disguise available at the Hidden Teahouse is the ninja costume (Hattori Hanzo) — it costs 1,300 Glory. Purchase and equip this disguise to unlock the Disguiser trophy.

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