The Ninja Gaiden series in 2025 has faced a new renaissance. Already, Game Kitchen’s successor ‘Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound’ shipped earlier this summer. “It’s one of the best retro revivals of the generation: joyous, relentlessly fun, and bursting with creative confidence. Its only missteps are some shallow progression systems and a slightly softened edge to its difficulty,” our review reads; scoring an 8/10.
Additionally, Ninja Gaiden even received other releases this year. Back in January, Ninja Gaiden II Black released with a new remaster for modern hardware. At the same time, Ninja Gaiden 4 was announced – a new joint project with PlatinumGames & Xbox Game Studios. The new installment is set to release on October 21st this coming week.
But in very upsetting news it was revealed on October 16th that the creator for the modern Ninja Gaiden titles, Tomonobu Itagaki, has passed away. Through a post on his Facebook account, Itagaki’s family shared that his passing was in correlation to an ongoing illness that the video game veteran was battling. You can read ‘My Last Words’ translated by Gematsu in the passage below:
The light of my life is finally about to fade.
The fact that this message has been posted means that the time has come at last. I am no longer in this world.
(This final message was entrusted to someone dear to me.)
My life was a series of battles. I kept on winning.
I also caused a lot of trouble.
I take pride in having fought through to the end according to my own convictions.
I have no regrets.
However, I am filled with sorrow that I was unable to deliver a new work to my fans. I’m sorry.
That’s how it is.
So it goes.
—Tomonobu Itagaki
Itagaki for the past few years has worked through his own venture – Itagaki Games. In a recent report this month from Gamebiz.jp, it was disclosed that the firm was dissolved, but he would not be stepping away from the industry. Itagaki was very vocal in his support for Xbox and even touted efforts to make exclusive content after his time working on Ninja Gaiden for the platform decades before. You can read the full report by heading here.
Rectify Gaming offers condolences to Itagaki’s family in his passing and the greater gaming industry in the loss of a visionary that shaped creative landscape.
