When the idea of a ninja was reduced to running alongside a wolf or swinging swords left and right to bare chest, there was a game that managed to teach us the true path of the shinobi leaving us speechless, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins.
Focusing on stealth and the use of gadgets to go unnoticed and annihilate our enemies silently and from the shadows, Tenchu It didn’t take long to become one of the most acclaimed jewels of the era of the first PlayStation. A superb game that, more than 20 years later, is now just a vestige of another era. What happened to Tenchu?
The origin of stealth in 3D
Developed by Acquirea Japanese company that still plays today with titles like the recent Octopath Traveler, the ninja game came to us through a collaboration between Sony Y Activision that managed to break all our schemes while reaping great success.
Tenchu It was a game that asked us to calm down, controlling the patrols of the enemies and peeking around the corners to deal the coup de grâce to any unsuspecting person who passed by shortly before Metal Gear Solid raised the concept of stealth even further.
From the hand of the mythical Rikimaru Y Ayamethe two protagonists that you could choose to complete the adventure -one slower and stronger, the other faster and weaker-, the levels of the game forced us to climb on the roofs with a hook, use smoke bombs to avoid direct conflict , and drop traps capable of hindering the enemy’s advance along his predetermined route.
Although it was not the first game to use stealth as a mechanic -Metal Gear themselves had already made use of it in the late 80s-, Tenchu he does have the honor of having been the first to transfer the idea to 3D scenes and characters, which, added to his camera and the inability to know for sure what was around us, showed us to what extent the tension caused by the unknown could reach to be addictive.
The beginning of the end of Tenchu
Its first success in 1998 was followed by several reissues with additions, one of them with a level editor, and a sequel in which the duo of Acquire Y Activision with equally celebrated results. In fact, it worked so well that it is difficult to understand what the change chosen for the third installment and its subsequent debacle came from.
Despite Acquire’s good hand with the game, to Tenchu: Wrath of HeavenActivision partners with K2, the Japanese developer with SNK and Square veterans that would eventually end up tied to Capcom. Theirs would be the following two and their subsequent versions for other platforms with a name change.
Between the exhaustion of the franchise, the lack of ideas and controversial decisions such as Rikimaru’s disappearance from the cast of characters, the saga remained halfway between indifference and the bottom of the catalogue, but in the process it gained a new ally who It would end up doing more harm than good.
With K2 at the helm of development, Activision leaned on Software for distribution in Japan and, aware of its potential among the public, the creators of the Dark Souls saga acquired the rights to the franchise in 2004 by buying the IP from Activision (but not the rights to the games released to date).
The abandonment of From Software
A Software The alliance with K2 lasted just one game and, from that moment on, they were in charge of shaping subsequent titles in collaboration with other companies such as Sega, Nintendo and even Microsoft.
Games for mobile phones, for Nintendo DS and even exclusives for Xbox 360 were succeeding each other year after year until in 2009 the saga gave its last gasp of life with the launch of Shadow Assassins for Wii and PSP in 2009, the latter by Acquire .
And just when the saga seemed to return to the fold with a very worthy game that recovered the original spirit, Software put on the brake. A year later they would release Demon’s Souls laying the foundations for the future of the company and, with a goose that lays golden eggs in their hands, from the four or five releases they used to release a year they went to one or two, almost all destined to continue squeezing their new franchise.
As in the case of Armored Core, another of its main licenses so far, the ninja saga ended up in a drawer waiting for a resurrection, only appearing from time to time in the form of a rumor or discarded project. In fact, Sekiro began his journey as a Tenchu.
We think that Tenchu is a very interesting series with its own traits and personality. We thought that if we just made another Tenchu, it would feel like an imitation of the previous games.
So we thought about what we wanted this time and whether or not we wanted to make Tenchu, and the answer was simply that we wanted to make a great ninja game.
and there it goes Tenchu in the shade, waiting Software is encouraged to pull its nostalgic component to give us a little surprise, or that Acquire decides to launch a spiritual sequel for the greater joy of all of us who remember it fondly.