‘No plans currently’ for a new Ninja Gaiden or Nioh sequel
Team Ninja is closing the door on theNiohseries now that “the story that we had built has come to an end,” and the studio has “no plans currently” for a newNinja Gaiden, according toFumihiko Yasuda.
In an interview withVideo Games Chronicle, theNiohdirector elaborated that “all the loose ends are tied up, so there are no plans for a sequel at this point. Of course, it’s something that is still possible in the future and that we will consider at a later date.” That’s disappointing news for ardent fans who have invested hundreds of hours, but at the same time, my ideal scenario would be for them to take time off, make something truly new, regroup, and circle back with a much-bolder and more distinctNioh 3.
On that front, Yasuda saidthat if Team Ninja ever returns to this yokai-infused historical universe, “it’s definitely possible for a potential sequel in theNiohseries to be in a different time period or even a completely different setting, and that’s something we’d like to take a challenge with in the future.”
Circling back onNinja Gaiden, it’s beenrumoredthat we’ll get a so-calledNinja Gaiden Trilogyin 2021 that bundles theSigmagames for PS4 and Nintendo Switch, and that seems entirely believable.
ANinja Gaidensequel isn’t in the works, butYasuda told VGC thathe’s “always wanted to make a new installment in the series.” Even though they’ve partnered with Sony forNioh, “theNinja Gaidenseries has had a long history onMicrosoft‘s consoles.” With that in mind, “if there was to be a new title in theNinja Gaidenseries in the future, we’d definitely like that to be on Xbox consoles.”
(On a separate but semi-related note,Dead or AliveandNinja Gaiden‘s Tomonobu Itagaki recentlyexpressed interestin working alongside Microsoft again with his newly-formed studio Itagaki Games.)
If Team Ninja isn’t doing a newNiohorNinja Gaiden, then what’s in the pipeline? We’ll have to see.
Asked about the new console generation,Yasuda said he’s excited about the SSD in the PlayStation 5 and how it can “open up new avenues for open world games being even more accessible to developers.”
Going one step further,he said “there’s definitely no specific plans to speak of at this time, but Team Ninja as a whole would specifically like to take on the open world genre. But we feel at this point thatthere haven’t really been open world games with a lot of intensity, which are really action-packed from beginning to end. So we’d like to actually take that on as a potential challenge in the future, and try to put a new spin on the open world genre in that regard.”
I’m listening! I feel like this team learned so much fromNioh, and I want to see that applied elsewhere.
Team Ninja Interview: ‘The Nioh story has come to an end’[VGC]
