Original Tenchu studio teases a potential spiritual successor for PS5

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins cover — (Image credit: Acquire)

The original developer of the Tenchu stealth action games wants to make a spiritual successor to the long-dormant series.

Takuma Endo, the president of Japanese developer Acquire, spoke about his studio's upcoming plans with Weekly Famitsu in an interview translated by Twinfinite. Endo mentioned reports that recently picked up on Acquire renewing the Japanese trademark for "Stealth Assassins", which was the subtitle for the original Tenchu game from 1998, but he explained that this was only to keep the trademark from expiring - thankfully, that isn't the end of the story.

A new Tenchu game hasn't come out since 2008 (though there was a 2014 stage adaptation) and Dark Souls company FromSoftware currently owns the rights to the Tenchu name. In fact, Sekiro was initially intended to be a Tenchu game before the studio decided to take it in a different direction, according to FromSoftware's community manager. Even if Acquire no longer has the rights to the franchise itself, Endo told Famitsu that he would like to "recreate a stealth ninja game from the ground up for the PS5 generation."

Tenchu was an early pioneer of 3D stealth action; the first game hit PlayStation about half a year before Metal Gear Solid. Acquire started its own Tenchu rival series called Shinobido in 2006, though it's also been dormant since 2011. Whatever name its spiritual successor takes, it will be good to see Acquire get back into the ninja business.

It could be a while until we see what comes of Endo's ninja dreams, but you can see what's next with our games to new games 2021 and beyond.

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar+.