Keiji Inafune (best known for his work on Mega Man, Onimusha, Lost Planet, Dead Rising,) announced his zombie-ninja action game “Yaiba” a few days prior to Tokyo Game Show, but he waited until today to announce that Yaiba is set within the Ninja Gaiden universe.
Now titled “Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z,” Yaiba tells the story of an undead ninja who’s trying to get vengeance for his own death at the hands of Ninja Gaiden’s stoic protagonist, Ryu Hayabusa. Inafune says he’s a fan of both zombie and ninja games, and the game is sort of a dream project from him. It makes sense, considering that Inafune worked on both the Onimusha and Dead Rising series’ during his tenure at Capcom.
Development duties for the games are apparently being split between 3 companies: Inafune’s new company Comcept, Tecmo’s Team Ninja, and weirdly enough, American developer Spark Unlimited, best known for their work on terrible FPS’s like Turning Point: Fall of Liberty and Legendary. Coincidentally, Spark Unlimited is also working with Inafune’s former employer, Capcom, on Lost Planet 3.
Spark Unlimited and the modern incarnation of Team Ninja don’t necessarily have the best of reputations, but I still have faith in Keiji Inafune — this is the guy who created Mega Man, after all — and Yaiba looks like an interesting and stylish take on the Ninja Gaiden franchise. No release date or platforms have been announced for Yaiba, but rumors currently suggest that it’ll be a multiplatform release for PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U.
In related news, Team Ninja also announced that Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma is being ported over to the Playstation Vita.
Source: Forbes