Rumor: The Xbox Developer Direct Japanese Game Is Ninja Gaiden

We have an interesting rumor on what could be coming for this month’s Xbox Developer Direct.

As shared on the GamingLeaksAndRumours subreddit by user KekanKok, eXtas1s says he is now 95 % sure which Japanese game Microsoft is rumored to bring to the Direct.

Now, he didn’t directly tell us what it is, but he shared four candidates in an earlier video, and he says he mentioned the game in the video. And in that video, his number one candidate is Ninja Gaiden.

Ninja Gaiden started out as an arcade game, but is best known for the trilogy of side-scrolling platformers on the Famicom/NES. In the 2000s, developer Tecmo brought the franchise to Xbox, with a newer Team Ninja led by Tomonobu Itagaki making another trilogy of 3D action games dubbed Ninja Gaiden Black.

Both of these Ninja Gaiden trilogies have a reputation of polished game design, cinematic narrative, and extreme difficulty. Before FromSoftware had their breakout hit in Dark Souls, Tecmo had the fearsome reputation of making overly hard video games.

Tecmo, now merged with Koei, have shifted away from Xbox exclusivity. But in the same what that Final Fantasy games show up in PlayStation events to excite PlayStation fans, Tecmo Koei could see the opportunity to showcase a new Ninja Gaiden in an Xbox event.

Team Ninja have somewhat neglected Ninja Gaiden and its sister franchise Dead or Alive in recent years, in favor of showcasing their own spin of FromSoftware style action games, which they have dubbed maso core games. But if they were planning to revive Ninja Gaiden, this Xbox Developer Direct would be the ideal event to do it.

eXtas1s’ other candidates are also worth consideration. For one, it could be a remake of Final Fantasy IX. For what it’s worth, Jez Corden stated that it’s possible for Square Enix could bring a Final Fantasy game to the Direct, and there could still be a separate Japanese game that Xbox will publish.

It could also be a Tales game from Square Enix. While Tales has a smaller following than Final Fantasy, Microsoft could publish such a game as part of their continuing effort to connect with the Japanese market, and also global fans of Japanese games. Finally, eXtas1s also named a Persona 4 Remake, which would then highlight their new closer relationship to Sega and especially Atlus.

All of these candidates do have their merits. While we can’t say we know which one of these is the rumored title, we do think Ninja Gaiden would be the best announcement. It would show that Microsoft has now connected to Tecmo Koei as well, adding to their Japanese studio partners.

It would definitely be something if Microsoft paid for proper remakes of the original Ninja Gaiden Black series on Xbox, that do have significant differences from the versions of these games on the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection. The veteran Team Ninja fans will attest to you it’s actually the Ninja Gaiden Black series that are the historically significant masterpieces and worth revisiting.

And of course, if Tecmo Koei secured funding for a Ninja Gaiden 4, or maybe even a franchise reboot, that would be a key jewel for Xbox to publish, and we mean as a game they could bring to multiple platforms. But we’ll see if the growing hype for this rumored title turns fruitful in the Xbox Developer Direct.