Team Ninja has explained why Ninja Gaiden (2004) and Ninja Gaiden (2008) in Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection are based on the censored Sigma versions. As it turned out, the source code of the original versions was lost.

In an interview with the Japanese magazine Famitsu, Team Ninja head and lead developer of Nioh 2, Fumihiko Yasuda, said that the creators decided to take the Sigma version as a basis, not only because at the moment these are the latest re-releases of games. The studio was unable to recover the source code of Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black for the original Xbox and base Ninja Gaiden 2 for the Xbox 360.

In response to a question from a Twitter user, the developers confirmed that Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 will not be able to turn on blood display, as in the Plus version released on the PlayStation Vita. Probably, similar restrictions apply to the first Ninja Gaiden.

Fumihiko also clarified that the developers have changed the difficulty in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 so that Tag Missions can be played without a second player. They decided to remove the multiplayer from the games due to the lack of budget and time for development.

Fans are unhappy with the studio’s decision and believe that the authors could return the missing features to the re-releases. Despite the presence of additional content, redesigned controls and other innovations, not everyone liked the Sigma versions. In Ninja Gaiden Sigma, you cannot chop off the heads of human opponents, and in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, the number of enemies is reduced, their health is increased and violence is veiled (blood is replaced with purple fog, severed limbs do not remain on the ground, and dismemberment and blood are absent in the cutscenes). In the Japanese version of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, only monsters can be decapitated, and the menu screens and Game Over have been changed from red to blue.

“Each game has a different concept, and Ninja Gaiden 2 has a focus on brutality and violence, – so in 2009 the president of Team Ninja, Yosuke Hayashi, spoke to GamesRadar. – When we started working on Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, we wondered about the need for emphasized violence, and in the end we decided to move away from this trend. “

Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection will also include 3 Ninja Gaiden 2012: Razor’s Edge. The collection will be released on June 10, 2021 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. On PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and S, games will run with backward compatibility. The physical edition is being prepared only for Asia, and exclusively for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch.