STUDIO PROFILE
TEAM NINJA
The Ninja Gaiden and Nioh developer enters an exciting new era
By Chris Schilling
Founded 1995
Employees 200
Key staff Yosuke Hayashi (president), Fumihiko Yasuda (producer, Nioh franchise director)
URL
teamninja-studio.com
Selected softography
Dead
Or
Alive,
Ninja
Gaiden,
Ninja
Gaiden
II,
Metroid:
Other
M,
Nioh,
Marvel
Ultimate
Alliance
3:
The
Black
Order,
Nioh
2
Current projects TBA
The advent of a new console generation represents a beginning and an ending. With the release of Nioh: Complete Edition earlier this year, Team Ninja marked PS5’s birth by bidding farewell to the series that has defined its recent past. Franchise director Fumihiko Yasuda has previously said that Nioh’s story is over, but he’s keen to clarify that he doesn’t necessarily mean for good. “The Nioh team will continue to support the games through updates, but after that the team will take on the challenge of developing other new titles,” he tells us. “I don’t know when it will be, but I want to utilise the experience the team gains from these new titles in order to create a sequel that will surpass both Nioh and Nioh 2.”
For now, however, it’s time to move on. To quote Kenshin Himura, protagonist of Nobuhiro Watsuki’s manga Rurouni Kenshin, “New eras don’t come about because of swords, they’re created by the people who wield them.” The wielders, in this case, are Yasuda and Yosuke Hayashi, studio president and co-director of the Nioh series, and they’re accustomed to fresh starts. After all, this was a studio that lost its sensei more than a decade ago, when founder Tomonobu Itagaki departed, having filed a lawsuit against publisher Tecmo for withheld bonuses. Several Team Ninja staff left with him, though plenty of veterans remain, including Hayashi (if ‘veteran’ is the right word for a 42-year-old who could pass for ten years younger), who was in his mid-20s when Itagaki made him project lead on Ninja Gaiden Black in 2005.