It's been quite some time since we've heard of any "Ninja Gaiden" franchise, and it'll even be a longer time before we might get our hands on one.
With "Ninja Gaiden" studio Team Ninja working on "NiOh" - its take on the "Dark Souls" series - has yet to appeal to "Ninja Gaiden" fans worldwide, Team Ninja creative director Tom Lee hopes that the game will bring something new to its lineup of games and hopefully be the first step towards a new "Ninja Gaiden" title.
In an interview with US Gamer, Lee has this to say: "Maybe I can say that 'Nioh' is a gateway into the next chapter for 'Ninja Gaiden.' ['Ninja Gaiden'] is a very important, if not the most important franchise, for us. But at this point, I think this franchise needs to be in the shadows for a while until we bring it back. There will be a time, and when the time is right, we will bring it back."
Lee also mentioned that in the interview the long process the team had to make "NiOh" - which was about a decade long - to learn about the valuable lessons on the trial and error aspects of the process. The last entry, 2014's "Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z" featured cel-shaded graphics, undead enemies, and had a new yet foul-mouthed character instead of the cool classic badass that Ryu Hayabusa. The game, however, was a critical failure both creatively and financially, but this meant for the team to learn from its mistakes to make "NiOh" and in turn for "NiOh" to pave the way for a possible "Ninja Gaiden" title, according to Attack of the Fanboy.
"Hayabusa... zombies... cel-shaded... just throwing a bunch of different things into that," said Lee. "We don't wanna backpedal on our decisions, but it wasn't the right move, I think. But we learned a lot. Just like this Nioh experience, you only learn things by failure. And I don't think we could have made this game if we hadn't had the Yaiba experience."
It's been ten years since Team Ninja's iconic founder, Tomonobu Itagaki, and the company has been making strides to create games with the high quality standard that has been around in the company for years while remaining faithful to their signature style of gameplay.
In the meantime, it looks like Team Ninja has found the right formula with the creation of "NiOh" with the hopes of finding a new identity for the team and breaking away from its original director.
