Here’s hoping that stupid bird doesn’t knock us off that one ledge again
Ninja Gaiden on NES was the game that I fired up every couple of months as a kid to make another run. It had sublime level design, great enemies, and a surprisingly good story for an early era game. The action was majestic — I remember being excited to cycle through the different powerups until I finally got the Fire Wheel, a truly glorious defensive weapon.
Over the years the series jumped into the third dimension for a whole new style of play, but I always missed that original 2D action. It was perfected.
Well, I’m very happy to say that the sidescrolling era of the series is on its way back. During the Game Awards, Koei Tecmo revealed a new game, headed up by Dotemu and The Game Kitchen, developers of the fantastic Blasphemous games. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is a 2D pixel-based platformer that captures the essence of the original games while bringing new action, abilities and stunning art to the forefront.
The game looks like it’s going to be a proper tribute and continuation of the series, and I’m definitely excited to see how the pedigree of the development team translates to this project.
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is due in 2025 for PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/S/X, Switch and PC.
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