It’s been quite sometime since the last Naruto fighting game was released to PC and console. Nearly six years as a matter of fact, that was when the launch of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 took place. Following some story based DLC to celebrate the release of the canonical Naruto films “The Last” and “Boruto” the believe was that Bandai had officially retired the anime fighting game franchise. Now a new report from anime gaming leaker Senju is suggesting that the franchise may in fact be making it’s long requested comeback. For those unaware of Senju’s place in the insider world he successfully leaked the Demon Slayer: Hinokami Chronicles DLC & game features as well as other info. Senju was also vetted by notable anime gaming Youtuber PS360HD as a source who was “as credible as it gets”.

According to Senju the new title has been in development for at least a year making it’s development having begun at some point in 2021. CyberConnect2 the team behind the previous franchise has been working on the aforementioned Hinokami Chronicles for Sega. That game is a bit of a spiritual successor to Ultimate Ninja Storm due to it using similar gameplay mechanics. Taking into account how busy CyberConnect2 has been lately I can’t see them being the current developers of this new title. I also doubt Bandai Namco would want to retain the same gameplay mechanics of the previous games when there’s a likely competitor in Hinokami Chronicles this is of course speculation on my part, but I can see the next game going through a bit of a revamp as we’re quite likely to get at least one sequel to Hinokami Chronicles. Another thing to note is that Storm 5 will probably be a reboot of the franchise and take on the “Boruto” name following the events of that series as well. The assumption is that that the would be entry will have it’s reveal later this year.