'Tenchu: Stealth Assassins' PlayStation 5 Revival Teased By Studio President
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The Tenchu franchise sits near the very top of a long list of cult PlayStation franchises I would never have expected to see ever again, somewhere between Parasite Eve and Wild Arms.
The stealth-action franchise started life on the original PlayStation back in the late 90s with Tenchu: Stealth Assassins. Its brutal blend of intense combat and punishing stealth was popular enough that it spawned a number of sequels, including a few titles developed under Dark Souls studio FromSoftware. The series eventually went out with something of a whimper in 2009 when Tenchu: Shadow Assassins was ported from the Wii to the PSP.
Since then, nobody has been all that vocal about wanting to see the series return. It's very much one of those franchises that you only remember once someone has reminded you it exists. But once you're reminded, you instantly recall how much you used to love it, you know? At least that's what happened with me when I started writing this story and the hours I put into the first two Tenchu games came flying out of the back of my mind from some long-shut filing cabinet of games I played when I was kid.
But while I would never have held my breath for a Tenchu revival, that's exactly what's now being teased by Takuma Endo, the president of original Tenchu developer Acquire. In a recent interview with Famitsu magazine (via Gematsu), Endo-san said that he'd be interested in creating a ground-up new entry in the stealth franchise for PlayStation 5 if the opportunity presented itself.
Acquire actually registered the 'Stealth Assassin' trademark back in 2018, and Endo noted that while this wasn't indictive of a new game at the time, it could lay the groundwork for a possible revival. We'll have to wait and see, however, as the developer did hint that there many be some potential difficulties in bringing Tenchu back exactly as we remember it. Still, this is the closest we've got to a possible new Tenchu game in well over a decade, so I'm happy to take what I can get for now.
Topics: PlayStation 5, News
