Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound led a new kind of retro revival wave at The Game Awards

As the first announcement of The Game Awards 2024 Opening Act, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound kicked off a retro revival trend that permeated throughout Geoff Keighley’s gaming event.

In the hours following Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound’s reveal, new games in series like Pac-Man, Virtua Fighter, Screamer, Onimusha, Turok, Okami, and Double Dragon games were announced. Some were radical reimaginings, like Shadow Labyrinth turning Pac-Man into a gritty action platformer, and the new Screamer game giving the cult classic 3D racer a new anime-inspired aesthetic. Others, like Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, look like modern takes on a formula that was perfected in the 8-bit era.

“When we began developing Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, we set out to answer a key question: what made the original series so timeless?” director and producer David Jaumandreu told Digital Trends following its announcement at The Game Awards.

Identifying an answer to that question and respecting it is important for any throwback title that’s attempting to reinvent a classic gameplay formula. The developers of games like Screamer and Shadow Labyrinth have indicated to Digital Trends that they’ve found those answers. While retro reimaginings are riskier creative endeavors than remakes, more companies and fans of retro franchises are beginning to see that opportunity more appealing.

Why reinvent what works?

A remake or remaster has the benefit of already having people buy into the game concept. The challenge then comes from how the game is re-created. Reinventing a franchise with a new game is a much tougher task, as it requires boiling a series down to the core elements that made it special in the first place. The developers of Shadow Labyrinth tell Digital Trends that they used concepts like the maze as eating blocks at the base from which it could build a radically different take on the Pac-Man formula.

Meanwhile, Screamer will embrace the exhilarating arcade racing experience that endeared the original to some avid fans in the 1990s. “Screamer found its footing thanks to its fast-paced arcade racing experience, and that’s what serves as the guiding light for many of the decisions we take on the project,” game director Federico Cardini tells Digital Trends. “While this type of experience has been neglected in recent years, we are confident that we can modernize it for a new audience without forgetting about its origins.”

With Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, developer The Game Kitchen had a lot to work with. While Koei Tecmo’s series hasn’t had a new game since 2014, it has a vast history as a trailblazer for difficult action games in both the 2D and 3D eras. The Game Kitchen, which has experience working on tough 2D action games like Blasphemous, chose to embrace the series’ 2D roots. As there hasn’t been a new 2D Ninja Gaiden since the 1990s, the developers had to think hard about what made those games feel timeless to them.

“We identified the core elements that captured our hearts: tight gameplay, impressive graphics, a catchy soundtrack, an engaging “Tecmo Theater”-driven storyline, and a legendary level of challenge,” Jaumandreu tells Digital Trends. “These elements formed an incredibly solid foundation for an action-packed game. As a team of passionate retro enthusiasts and modern gamers, we’ve worked tirelessly to capture the magic of the best ’80s and ’90s NES ninja action in a game that feels, sounds, and looks as good as today’s finest neo-retro titles.”

Building something similar, but different

A lot happens between a studio green-lighting a retro revival and us seeing an entertaining announcement trailer at an event like The Game Awards 2024. Many artistic decisions have to be made about everything from visuals to gameplay. The Game Kitchen found pixel art a “natural” choice for Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, considering many of the studio’s other games also use pixel art. However, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound’s developers also chose not to be held down by the constraints of 8-bit art direction and even took some influence from the franchise’s later 3D titles.

“Without the constraints of 8-bit color and resolution limitations, we’ve crafted a wide array of highly detailed environments that leap off the screen,” Jaumandreu says. “Drawing inspiration from ’90s anime aesthetics, we’ve built a vibrant and colorful world that expands on the adventurous spirit of the originals. Fluid animation has been key to bringing these characters to life, ensuring the sprites feel as agile, responsive, and powerful as they did in the 3D installments.”

Dotemu

Gameplay is the main front where retro reimaginings can make the most wild swings. Of the announcements at The Game Awards, Shadow Labyrinth makes the wildest swing, going from a score-driven maze game to a Metroidvania-like action platformer. Pac-Man brand manager Knoah Piasek tells Digital Trends that Bandai Namco hopes this approach will attract a new audience to Pac-Man and that those players will then be “interested in legacy” from there. For Ragebound, The Game Kitchen stuck to the series’ 2D roots more closely, making a frenetic hack-n-slash 2D platformer. That said, The Game Kitchen also incorporated modern difficulty design sensibilities to make Ragebound feel fairer to play than its NES counterparts.

“Our top priority has been to build on the classic fast-paced hack-and-slash mechanics while preserving the series’ pick-up-and-play simplicity,” Jaumandreu says. “We’ve expanded the protagonist’s move set to allow for maximum fluidity in traversal while maintaining straightforward and immediate combat that delivers instant responsiveness and clear input predictability. The challenge level remains high, as fans expect, but we’ve designed it to favor fast reflexes and reactive gameplay over memorization. This ensures the difficulty feels tough yet fair.”

More revivals to come

Those aren’t the onlt revivals coming. In a note to investors after announcing Onimusha: The Way of the Sword and an Okami sequel at The Game Awards, Capcom said it is “focusing on re-activating dormant IPs that haven’t had a new title launch recently” because it wants to “enhance corporate value by leveraging its rich library of content, which includes reviving past IPs.” That’s a dry, business-focused answer as to why older games are returning. The insights offered by the developers of games like Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Screamer to Digital Trends highlight developers’ passion and appreciation for these retro titles that are required for a comeback, though.

To entertain old fans and capture the attention of new audiences, retro revivals need to build on the core elements that made their franchises timeless classics in the first place. While doing so, they need to find new ways to recontextualize the core pillars of a franchise to something players haven’t quite seen before. That can be as simple as Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound bringing the agileness of the series’ 3D entries to 2D or as complex as turning Pac-Man into a violent Metroidvania.

While remasters and remakes also don’t seem to be slowing down, these reimaginings excite me a lot more because they’re creating something new to join the pantheon of these retro classics. Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and all the other retro-related reveals from The Game Awards indicated that the video game industry is trending toward doing more than those. I can’t wait to see what other series get this treatment next.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Shadow Labyrinth will be released in 2025, while Screamer will launch sometime in 2026.