Today I checked out Ninja Gaiden 3, the heavily discussed sequel from Team Ninja. Impressions are coming soon, but one thing I noticed right away is that limbs stay intact this time around. Dismemberment and decapitation aren’t present, and that’s because — according to Team Ninja — the game is about violence, not gore.
“To us, there’s a difference between gore and violence,” said producer Yosuke Hayashi. “Ninja Gaiden 2 was about gore. Ninja Gaiden 3 is about violence … that feeling of cutting into bone, actually killing a person. When you cut off an arm, it just becomes an object. Ryu is fighting humans, not monsters, and we want you to feel that.”
While there is plenty of blood, Team Ninja is going for a more grounded approach when it comes to the merciless murder. According to Hayashi, this ties in with the story, as Ryu comes face to face with the volume of lives he’s taken. Hayashi adds that “we’ve never dealt with the consequences” of Ryu’s killing before, but that this will be the central theme of the upcoming game.
