Ninja Gaiden Master Collection Dev Explains Why Sigma Versions Of First Two Games Were Used

The Ninja Gaiden series is looking to make a grand return later this year with Ninja Gaiden Master Collection. The collection will collect three different action-packed games, but hardcore fans know that isn’t quite the whole story. The first two games in the collection are Ninja Gaiden Sigma and Sigma 2, which were re-releases of the original two releases, including the beloved and legendary Ninja Gaiden Black, itself an enhanced re-release of the 2004 original release on Xbox. There’s some friction with fans about those versions, as Sigma altered several things about both titles, especially Sigma 2 which significantly reworked Ninja Gaiden 2 to being essentially a different game. So why these versions? Or maybe more specifically, why exclude the non-Sigma versions? Well, seems that just wasn’t on the table.

Talking to Famitsu, and as transcribed by Gamestalk, Team Ninja’s Fumihiko Yasuda spoke about various aspects of the upcoming release. When talking about why there was no inclusion of the versions mentioned about, he said it was two fold. The first was that the Sigma versions were considered the final versions of the game, and the other was that Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2‘s data was not salvageable. He doesn’t go into details, but it sounds as if the data behind those games were not preserved, meaning it would be significantly more work to remaster them versus the Sigma titles.

Ninja Gaiden Master Collection will release on June 10th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC. The game is said to run at 4K and 60 FPS, and you can read more about that and the game’s Deluxe Edition release through here.