'Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z' Announcement Trailer & Screenshots

Game Rant

By GR Staff

Published Sep 19, 2012

Keiji Inafune, Team Ninja and Spark Unlimited are teaming up to create 'Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z', an action-packed, blood-soaked game full of zombies, ninjas and mechs. Check out the first trailer and screenshots right here!

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Revealed at the 2012 Tokyo Game Show, Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z pairs legendary game creator Keiji Inafune with Team Ninja and Spark Unlimited for a pulpy, violent, comic book-inspired mash-up of ninjas, zombies and mechs. Seriously. Precious little is actually known about the game at present, but Tecmo Koei has released an announcement trailer along with a selection of screenshots, and they're all kinds of awesome.

During his long tenure at Capcom, Keiji Inafune created Mega Man and worked in various capacities on Onimusha, Resident Evil, Lost Planet and Dead Rising - it's a hugely impressive record, and those are just the highlights. Inafune abruptly left Capcom in late 2010 (he was Global Head of Production at the time), and went on to form a studio of his own, Comcept, which is developing the upcoming Vita game Soul Sacrifice. Now Comcept is ready to deliver its first console title - to exactly which consoles, no one is saying - and, naturally, zombies had to be involved.

Inafune elaborates on Yaiba's inception below.

"When you think of Inafune you think of zombies, and when you think of Team NINJA you are aware of their heritage in creating great ninja games. So it was natural to combine these ideas in an organic way when I started thinking about my next game project. I believe players will really enjoy the YAIBA idea of creating a spectacular game experience around zombies, ninja, action and mechs."

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Everything we (think we) know about Yaiba comes from its blood-drenched, striking announcement trailer. Yaiba, a "fallen warrior" has come "back from the dead" to "fight the undead" and "kill his killer," who turns out to be none other than Ninja Gaiden's Ryu Hayabusa! Where mechs enter the equation is, for now, anyone's guess - although, if Inafune is bringing the zombies (and he is), and Team Ninja is responsible for the ninjas (and they are), that leaves the mechs to Spark Unlimited, which makes a certain amount of sense. Spark is developing Lost Planet 3 for Inafune's old employers, and that game definitely has its share of mechs.

Speaking of Spark, the developer posted a job listing last April in hopes of finding a Lead Combat Designer for, "a bold new take on 3rd person action slasher with horror elements for the PS3 and Xbox 360." The game in question was described as being, "based on an established console franchise." If that's not Yaiba, I don't know what is. I guess we know which consoles the game is coming to after all.

Ranters, what are your first impressions of Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z? Are you happy that Inafune is working on another zombie game? How do you feel about Ryu Hayabusa as Yaiba's antagonist? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z is currently in development.

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