The Ninja Gaiden series has seen better days. Once, with Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2, the series was the crest of the action game wave, with its technical mastery over the genre far beyond anything any other pretender could hope to achieve. And yet, since Ninja Gaiden 2, the series has been in a downhill slide.
Ninja Gaiden 3 launched, and was, well, a really poorly received game; Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z was sort of reimagining of the series, but it also ended up not sticking the landing, with its reception not being particularly great either.
What I am trying to say is, no one has cared for the last couple of games in the series. Which is why it makes complete sense for Koei Tecmo to try and bring one of them to current generation consoles. Wait, what?
That’s what they are doing, apparently. At least, if the trademark filing for the brand that Koei applied for in the US is any indication. That, or they just really don’t want to lose the trademark for it for some reason. Maybe this is what Team Ninja meant when they suggested the series might eventually return (hopefully not, though).
If you are even slightly curious about this, I recommend that you turn away and go and play Ninja Gaiden Black instead. You can actually play it on Xbox One now, thanks to the magic of backward compatibility.