The backward compatibility now of NG2 and NG3RE has me diving back into my favorite game series again. My 360 died a while back so it had been a long time since I played my NG games. Finally decided to bite the bullet and get a used X1X. Man, I forgot how much I loved these games....
With my interest in NG rekindled, I am naturally thinking about NG4 like we all have for years now. With the recent release of the Nioh 2 alpha (another game I am super excited for), it got me thinking that a new NG is likely not too far away. The IP is just too important to Koei Tecmo for them to let languish much longer.... My suspicion is that a new NG has likely been in development already in some way. A few factors that lead to this feeling:
- Team Ninja is a much larger team than it used to be and is not just doing one game at a time, but has a bunch of projects at various stages of development. I just don't think the whole top-tier action internal dev team is all just working on Nioh 2 only.
- DOA6 is out and the major development work is over. So, we have a chunk of these developers likely working on something else...
- Nioh 2 is already in alpha stage and is very much looking more like a Nioh 1.5 (not necessarily a bad thing), which is not surprising given the short turn around from Nioh 1. But, this indicates to me that Nioh 2's development has likely then not been the major, from the ground up effort the first game was requiring tons of developer staff.
- NG2 and NG3RE now being backward compatible announcement, effectively putting Ninja Gaiden back on everyone's radar again.
- And perhaps most importantly from a business perspective, the time has never been better for a new NG. The market has changed since the NG3 days. The success of God of War, DMC5 and Sekiro are going to add a significant push/motivation for Team Ninja (and the Koei Tecmo brass) to capitalize on the current market environment and get a challenging Ninja Gaiden back out there again while the timing is right.
Now I don't think a new Ninja Gaiden is right around the corner with Nioh 2 coming out late this year I'm guessing. But, I also don't think a new Ninja Gaiden is that far off.... In fact, I would not be surprised if we at least get an initial announcement of some kind later this year (maybe TGS?).
Maybe even a next-gen launch title in 2020?
Maybe all just wishful thinking as usual....but hey we can dream right?
