Continuing the tradition of Naruto games having ridiculous game titles, a trailer for the upcoming Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker has leaked ahead of its official announcement on Monday. Styled as “Acrobatic Ninja Battle Action”, this 4v4 team brawler looks like an attempt to bring a high profile anime property into the realm of MOBAs and online arena fighters.
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Captured by GameSpot, the trailer shows Squad 7 fighting against members of the Akatsuki, switching between various arenas from the Naruto universe. As the name suggests, the game is attempting to bridge the gap between the previous Naruto series, to the new Boruto universe which follows the adventures of Naruto’s son. You’d expect then the trailer to show characters from the new series fighting with the old but no, you’ve got series stalwarts like Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke fighting it out in this introductory trailer.
The arenas shown in this trailer emphasise verticality, with Naruto and pals wall-running and jumping from place to place. You can free run up on these vertical surfaces, with ninjas being able to leap from flat ground to a wall with a charged jump. You can even fight while wall-running, with one section of the trailer showing Sasuke fighting against blue shark man Kisame up a wall.
As you can expect with a Naruto game, you’ll be dodging attacks with your substitution justus, dealing damage with over the top ninjutsu and occasionally turning into a giant tailed beast to wreck havoc on the enemy team. While it’s supposedly a brand new graphic style, it looks almost identical to the Ultimate Ninja Storm series.
Rather than being made by anime game developer veterans CyberConnect2, Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker is being developed by Soleil, a subsidiary of Valhalla Game Studios. If you don’t know who Valhalla Game Studios are, they (in)famously made Devil’s Third, the critically panned shooter for the Wii U. Luckily, Devil’s Third’s multiplayer was actually the most praised element and seeing as Naruto to Boruto is a multiplayer brawler, it may not be all bad news.
Expect more information on the Steam release for Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker when it is officially revealed this coming Monday.