As reported by Gematsu, the announcement was made in a Livestream to commemorate the new year by the company (which you can watch below, though it is in Japanese). The announcement was made by CyberConnect2’s CEO Hiroshi Matsuya, while also pointing out the sales for their other anime-based action games, like 2021’s Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles with over 1.32 million units sold, and 2016’s Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 managing to sell over 8.7 million.

Regardless, it is great to see that Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot’s performing well even in the current year, as the game is still a great way to experience the Dragon Ball Z saga without skimming through hundreds of episodes. The numbers are in all honestly not too shocking, as back in 2020, Bandai Namco Entertainment announced that the game had sold 2 million units worldwide. By the looks of it, fans and newcomers did warm up to the idea of an RPG set in the Dragon Ball Z universe, as the 4.5 million sales prove.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is available for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC, and Google Stadia.

The latest sales for software and hardware from Japan are in courtesy of Media Create. According to its data, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 managed to debut in first place on the PS4. It sold 64,446 units in its first week.

Dragon Quest Builders on the PS4 and PS Vita wasn’t too far behind though. It managed to sell 32,784 units and 46,391 units respectively for lifetime totals of 174,153 and 224,407. Even the PlayStation 3 version saw relatively good sales with 19,151 units sold in the week (72,305 units over its lifetime).

Despite its dismal quality, Nintendo’s Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash on the Wii U has been hanging in there with 17,856 units sold and 73,187 lifetime sales. At least Monster Hunter X on the 3DS is doing well with 2,674,914 units sold over its lifetime and 13,391 units in the past week. Splatoon has also stayed in the top ten with 13,391 units sold this week and 1,240,225 units over its lifetime.

Despite a strong start and unseating the reigning king of the UK game charts, LEGO Marvel’s Avengers fell to second place this week as Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 regained its number one spot according to the latest data from Gfk Chart-Trakc.

Meanwhile, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 saw a very strong release, entering at third place in the UK. As the first game in the series to release on current gen consoles, it reportedly became the second biggest week-one selling title in the franchise.

FIFA 16 is in fourth place followed by Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, Grand Theft Auto 5, Star Wars Battlefront and Just Cause 3. Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate and Minecraft: Story Mode managed to crack the top ten this week, which is especially surprising for the former given it’s lower than expected first week sales at launch.

What are your thoughts on this week’s UK sales numbers? Let us know in the comments below.

The game is set to be published by Bandai Namco, who have been with the series since its creation. This is set to be the first game in the long running series that will be launched on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, thus marking the series first steps onto the 8th generation of consoles. Alongside the console build of the game, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 will also be launching on PC.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is the final title in the long running series of Naruto fighting titles that started in 2003 on the PlayStation 2.

Since then, gaming demographics have shifted and the available hardware that games are played on has become much more powerful. It’s because of the increase in the popularity of the 8th generation consoles that the President and CEO of CyberConnect, Hiroshi Matsuyama, made the decision that the game will be developed solely for the Xbox One and PS4.

The development team is said to have taken on feedback from the devoted fans from within the Naruto gaming community. This feedback was used to implement more story elements into the game so that the jump from fight to fight less jarring.

Unlike the other games in the series that have come before it, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is being developed around a core design philosophy that focuses on giving the game longevity.

With the idea of making the game last as long as possible, new gameplay mechanics are being introduced by way of a set of new combat mechanics that have been developed from the ground up exclusively for this game. While there isn’t a lot of information available regarding these new mechanics, they said to have opened up new avenues of strategy for the player.
Not only that, but the games internal combat and damage systems have been reworked and reimplemented in the game to make it feel fresh and new.

The game is going to have a relatively large roster of characters and will recreate the Fourth Great Ninja War, the final arc of the series that sees Allied Shinobi Forces taking on Akatsuki.

Story

At the time of writing, there are no official details available as to what events of the Fourth Great Ninja War will feature in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4. It is expected that several key battles, including the battle between Uchiha Madara and the Five Kage, will be included.

Gameplay

Gameplay is unlikely to change from the established format, but we do know that the developers have been changing the games’ core mechanics to allow for the better implementation of strategic choices..

The games core consists of PvP and PvE conflicts that are set in the Naruto universe with each player taking control of an established character. Combat ensues in the usual format of one on one battles with players inputting button combinations to perform different attacks and special attacks that take the form of the respective Jutsu or abilities of the fighter.

On top of this, the games internal systems that handle damage calculation have been reworked. It’s not yet known how this will affect overall damage output by characters, combos and match length.

The roster is expected to be the same as the one that appeared in Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 with several new additions based on events in the final story arc. That roster numbered a total of 80 playable characters and 7 supporting characters. The roster of Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is said to be the “most impressive” cast yet. The character roster is going to include the “latest character appearances from the manga” and a number of characters from The Last: Naruto The Movie.

Characters

At this time, the official roster of characters has not yet been revealed, but as mentioned above it is going to be the “most impressive” yet. The addition of The Last: Naruto The Movie characters means that several grown up versions of famous characters (like Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto) will be featured.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

Even if CyberConnect 2’s Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 doesn’t end up significantly changing the series’ gameplay formula, it should be the definitive game when it comes to the character roster. According to a recent announcement, Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 will include characters from The Last: Naruto the Movie.

This essentially means that you’ll see grown-up versions of Naruto, Sasuke, Hinata and Sakura. The Last: Naruto the Movie takes place after the ending of the manga and follows the series’ characters after they’ve grown up, gotten married and had children. Whether said children – or other characters who have also grown up – will appear remains to be seen.

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 will be heading to PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC via Steam in 2015. Are you looking forward to it or playing as the Naruto movie characters? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and stay tuned for more information on the game’s release.

Bandai Namco’s next fighting game based on their Naruto anime and manga license, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, has already been announced to be coming to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam. As a successor to a series of generally good and fun fighting games, people are already pretty pumped about it, but now, this latest batch of information that we grom from Famitsu (translated) might make you even more hyped.

“By developing the title for the PS4, this allows for the graphics and overall beauty of the game to really come to life. Battles will evolve with alterable stages, and with hyper-realistic character expressions, players will truly feel like they are in the battle themselves in a way that hasn’t been seen before,” the developers said.

“Boss bottles will offer fresh, new gameplay systems that add a new layer of strategic depth.”

That sounds pretty damn awesome to me, and it sounds like the game will also make an effort to differentiate itself from the games that have already released in the series so far.

CyberConnect2 president Hiroshi Matsuyama has confirmed on Twitter that the next Naruto Shippuden fighting game, namely Ultimate Ninja Storm 4, will be arriving on the PS4, Xbox One and PC.

“Today, it was officially announced! ‘Ultimate Ninja Storm 4′! Appearing on the PS4! Not on the PS3. I have completely developed this as a next-generation title. You can experience the demo over the weekend at Jump Festa 2015, so by all means, please try it out! Can you wait for this amazing experience!?”

The studio’s last big release was Naruto Shipudden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Revolution recently came out on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Like Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 before it, Revolution featured characters from the most recent Naruto manga arc, namely the Great Ninja War. With the manga now complete, will there still be enthusiasm for the franchise going forward? Will it tie into the upcoming movie and feature grown-up versions of the series’ characters? Let us know in the comments.