Though I'd argue even Nioh 1&2 are surprisingly demanding given how they look almost cross gen (with ps3). They don't look particularly better than something like Dark Souls 2, Vanquish or Dragons Dogma and yet the hardware requirements are notoriously higher.
Yeah, this is a lack of rendering shortcuts. For example, they tend to render out a lot of geometry that other studios would spoof with normal maps or POM and geometry eats up render budget like crazy. The approach is not bad, per se, but it's not sophisticated by any means.