Shinobi

Of the many franchises that Sega has deigned to keep alive, Shinobi has been criminally left out. It’s a shame because in 2002, the developer had a chance to beat Team Ninja’s Ninja Gaiden to the punch with high paced ninja action and ultra violence. It unfortunately buckled under an (ironically enough) insane difficulty, lack of depth and poor level design. Shinobi 3D in 2011 attempted to reignite the 2D side-scrolling magic of old but it just couldn’t match the brilliance of the old-school Shinobi titles.

Newly promoted EA Labels president, Frank Gibeau, former EA Games boss, says the firm is looking at bringing back old franchises like Road Rash and Strike from the dead and re-imagine them according to contemporary gaming standards, like they did with Medal of Honor (but hopefully better).

“We do have a couple of old franchises that we’re looking at right now… reimagining them and bringing them back,” Gibeau said while talking to CVG. “We’ve got 25 years of good IPs and I’ve worked on a few of them in my career like Road Rash and the Strike series. So I have a strong affinity for a lot of the things we’ve done in the past.

“We kind of have a rule which is you’ve got to have a really good reason to bring something back – What can you do to it that makes it fresh and brings something new to the equation of the franchise?

Like basically what we did with Medal of Honor when we brought it back; we looked at going after more modern themes… the war that’s happening now as opposed to a historical war. That was the reason we brought Medal of Honor back.

“But when we look at Road Rash, the Strike series or some of these other franchises we really challenge ourselves. We can’t just put them on new tech with the same gameplay from ten years ago, we’ve got to have something new. That’s the typical challenge that we have.”

Do it, EA, do it. We want a Road Rash remake bad.

Particularly Oliver Twist, which has an excellent narrative to explore.

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