Team Ninja seems to have a lot of plans for 2021 and beyond. In an interview with Video Games Chronicles, studio Director and Producer Fumihiko Yasuda stated that they are preparing few new titles to unveil at some point, with plans of increasing development for the rest of the year. However, Yasuda then proceeded to break some fans’ hearts by also mentioning that the unannounced titles will not consist of anything from the Ninja Gaiden or the Nioh franchises. In other words, Team Ninja isn’t working on any new entries for either series at this time.
The Nioh franchise is still riding high, as Team Ninja only released Nioh 2 just last year and is currently preparing the Nioh Collection for the PlayStation 5 and PC, which is due to launch next month. Ninja Gaiden on the other hand hasn’t seen a proper release since 2012 which was Ninja Gaiden 3 and its update Ninja Gaiden 3 Razers Edge respectively. It appears that the studio has not even touched upon their IP since then.
Yasuda himself desires to return to the Ninja Gaiden franchise, but in the interview, he states that “No plans currently, but I’ve always wanted to make a new installment in the series, so here’s hoping for that.” While this enthusiasm gives the fans some hope, it’s still unfortunate that the studio isn’t going to be making a new Ninja Gaiden title anytime soon, something that the die-hard fans have been wanting for some time now. As for the aforementioned Nioh franchise, it’s not all that surprising to hear that the studio isn’t working on another entry, as the series has essentially wrapped up with the latest iteration.
It will be interesting to see what Team Ninja has in store for us this year, especially since it sounds like all of these new titles are going to be either brand new IP’s or continuations of unknown ones. At the end of the interview, Yasuda stated that “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.” Considering that the studio hasn’t really developed an open-world title, this would definitely be an intriguing prospect to look forward to. Only time will tell when Team Ninja is ready to reveal their projects.