Almost 20 years after the initial release of Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360, Team Ninja have decided to grace the action gaming community with a beautiful re-release of the game in the form of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black.
This isn’t the first time Ninja Gaiden II has been remastered, with Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 being released the year after the initial version of the game, heavily changing the game with additional characters and different enemy layouts as well as additional content. Ninja Gaiden 2 Black could be considered the definitive edition of Ninja Gaiden II, with many of the changes made from Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 sticking around such as the additional characters in Ayane, Rachel, and Momiji as well as the additional content.
This announcement kind of came out of nowhere, Team Ninja is constantly working on new games and innovating on new ideas as we know but nobody was expecting a remaster of an old Ninja Gaiden game. Though with the “character action” well a bit dry as of late, with things like the lack of news coming from the Devil May Cry front and Tango Gameworks, the studio behind Hi-Fi Rush, being acquired leaving the future of that series up in the air, the action genre needed a bit of revitalization and it seems that this might be the news those adrenaline junkies desperately need as they spend the next 200+ hours grinding combos and crafting more efficient ways to Izuna Drop enemies.
Though the placement of this announcement, in hindsight, is not so surprising. With the news that Team Ninja’s last big release Rise of the Ronin, previously a Playstation 5 exclusive, is now coming to PC it wouldn’t be a surprise if the announcement of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is partially to get eyes on Team Ninja as a whole to bring attention to that port as well. Regardless, this is a pretty exciting week if you’re a big Team Ninja fan.