Having been responsible for franchises such as Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden, and Nioh, Team Ninja has over the course of the years firmly established itself as a developer of some of the best action games one can get their hands on. But with Nioh seemingly on a break for the time being and no new Ninja Gaiden game currently being in the works (even though the studio definitely wants to return to the series eventually), there’s plenty of questions about exactly what the team is going to do next.
Given how popular open world game design is in the industry, it’s no surprise that that’s something Team Ninja has been keeping an eye on. Speaking in a recent interview with JPGames, Team Ninja studio head Fumihiko Yasuda said that though the developer will continue to focus on making action games, they might want to try their hand at an open world project, or maybe even something with a sci-fi twist.
“I don’t think there would be any change in terms of focus, which is the action,” Yasuda said. “But if I could do something I’ve never tried it would be an open world game or even a sci-fi game.”
A sci-fi open world title with the kind of mechanically dense and tight action that Team Ninja crafts would be pretty hard to say no to, of course, but this is all still pretty hypothetical for now. As far as the immediate future is concerned, Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo are launching Ninja Gaiden Master Collection this June.