Koei Tecmo kicked off The Game Awards 2024with an unexpected but exciting announcement: The reveal ofNinja Gaiden: Ragebound, a brand-new 2D entry in this legendary franchise and a collaboration with The Game Kitchen, developers of the excellentBlasphemousseries.
This beautiful animated trailer tells the story of Kenji Mozu, a young ninja who will have to protect Hayabusa Village from a terrifying army of demons while the series’ protagonist, Ryu Hayabusa, is far and away traveling to America. As incredible as the animation of this trailer is, the thing that immediately grabbed our attention was this game’s astounding sprite work.
After all, The Game Kitchen is developingNinja Gaiden: Ragebound. This is the Spanish studio behind Blasphemous 1 and Blasphemous 2, two dark Metroidvania adventures that are famous for having some of the biggest, most impressive, and most detailed sprites ever seen in a video game. Choosing this studio to take over theNinja Gaidenfranchise was a brilliant decision because, as we can see in this trailer,Rageboundis going to feature the same incredible sprite work that we would expect from The Game Kitchen.
Ninja Gaiden: Rageboundwill come out in the Summer of 2025, and it will be available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. It’s important to point out thatDotemu will be publishing this game and not the company that created the IP, Koei Tecmo.
This is exactly what the Ninja Gaiden franchise needed
It may be easy to forget now, but this used to be one of the most beloved and important 2D side-scrolling franchises back in the 80s and 90s, mainly due to its fun but extremely challenging NES trilogy. The series went dormant for many years when the gaming industry pivoted to 3D graphics until the release of the 2004 reboot (simply titledNinja Gaiden), a stunning and ruthless hack-and-slash game.
This genre was a perfect fit for the IP, which ended up thriving during the 2000s due to the success of these games. However, the critical and commercial failures of its two latest entries,Ninja Gaiden 3andYaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z, forced Koei Tecmo to put the franchise to sleep once again in 2014 (The only exception was theMaster Collection, a compilation of the 3D hack-and-slash trilogy that came out in 2021)
Ninja Gaidenis way too good and iconic to remain dormant forever, so the announcement ofRageboundwas a much-needed return to form for this franchise. In the trailer, we can see some fun 2D side-scrolling gameplay, complete with tough-as-nails enemies, challenging platforming, violent combat, and excellent music. Considering that The Game Kitchen excels at these types of experiences, there’s no doubt that the studio will do an excellent job withNinja Gaiden: Ragebound, not to mention that it will be single-handedly responsible for bringing back this classic franchise.
