Nioh is a solid action game and one of the highlights of one of the most impressive January-to-March post-holiday “slumps” in recent memory. You wouldn’t believe it from 2017, but this is supposed to be the time of year that publishers take it easy!
Not Koei Tecmo, that’s for certain, which claims that Nioh is its “most successful title in the west.” In an interview with MCVUK, General Manager Yasutomo Watanabe claims that the action game has reached 1 million households and praises the efforts of Team Ninja, which had been struggling in recent years.
Nioh is a title reflects a lot of creativity and a lot of soul, and is a reflection of what made Team Ninja a successful studio in the first place. It’s a triumphant return to the studio’s strengths and media and players reacted very positively.
Watanabe also pointed towards Nioh’s unique approach to polish and closing out development. After much of the game was already finished, Koei Tecmo released a series of demos and incorporated fan feedback into the final product, essentially making it a focus group in which anyone could participate.
From a development standpoint, the approach Team Ninja chose yielded very important results, as they essentially included the wider public on development decisions from an early stage with the release of the Alpha demo.
Being so open, [as well as] incorporating feedback from the fans certainly helped increase interest in the game and shape players’ expectations.
Nioh could lead to a brand new Ninja Gaiden
Speculation is out there that Team Ninja is back on its feet, and it wants to prep for a new Ninja Gaiden game. The series has not been able to recapture the revolutionary, but voices inside of Koei Tecmo suggest that Nioh’s success could lead to another game.
To this, Watanabe couldn’t speak directly
We know a lot of our fans in the world have been waiting for the next Ninja Gaiden and it is one of the most important projects for us as well. At the moment, we are not in a position to announce anything, but we are hoping to share good news with you once we are ready.
We can dream, can’t we? In the meantime, 1 million copies is not something the studio can ignore, so even if Ninja Gaiden was not in the pipe, Nioh might just have enough name recognition to get a sequel at this point.
