Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker is Bandai Namco and Soleil’s upcoming fighting game. Well ahead of its release comes a Tokyo Game Show 2017 trailer revealing that its playable beta is set to drop soon. Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker will debut across PC, PS4 and Xbox One in early 2018.
If you recall back on August 24th, 2017, Bandai Namco announced that Soleil’s Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker would soon gain a playable beta in Japan. Sadly, though, further information about the beta test in Japan at that time was said to be announced at a later date.
Naruto is in a strange place right now. The long-running manga series ended in early 2015, before its anime adaptation wrapped up in March this year. The spiky-haired ninja saved the world and achieved his dream of becoming the Hokage, or rather the leader, of the Hidden Leaf village. But now there’s Boruto, a new series about his boisterous son. Both the manga and anime are relatively new and it’s not clear just yet if either will replicate the success of the original series.
That leaves Bandai Namco, the video game rights holder for Naruto, in a tough spot. The popular Ultimate Ninja Storm games allowed players to relive the events of the Naruto manga and anime, right up to the end of the first movie starring his son Boruto. But there simply isn’t enough story material to make a new Boruto game at the moment. While everyone waits for the new manga to accumulate a healthy lead, Bandai Namco is trying something different with a game called Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker.
Fast forward to now, Bandai Namco has a new Tokyo Game Show 2017 trailer for Shinobi Striker, and on the main image for the video reveals that of a beta test to come soon.
In addition to the above regarding a playable beta, there’s no telling whether there will be a Western beta alongside the Japanese version or will there just be the latter when said date arrives? Hopefully the beta spans across all regions for fans to test.
Naruto to Boruto Shinobi Striker granted us Naruto gamers with something new to consoles that fans have wanted forever in an anime video game (specifically Naruto). We have seen it before in Dragon Ball Xenoverse and Xenoverse 2, and that feature is none other than Character Customization! Now that the feature has been added and confirmed for Shinobi Striker, the game will definitely be something that Naruto gamers will want since Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 is dead, sort of.
Anyway we got a brand new scan from V – Jump Magazine showcasing a brand new scan with details of a closed Beta for Naruto to Boruto Shinobi Striker! Let’s get to the details and the rest of scan!
The translated scan from this month’s issue of V – Jump Magazine explains how players will be able to inherit and learn various Justus from other Ninja in the Naruto and Boruto world. This is something that was already confirmed from older news seeing as how you can customize each characters jutsu by learning them and therefore unlocking them. The scan reveals the custom character learning Naruto’s “Chou Oodama Rasengan” (big ball rasengan) which was passed down to him from Jiraiya.
Apparently Justus can also be learned from the Konoha Ninjutsu Resource Center other than the Virtual Reality Center. In this Center you will be an apprentice to a legendary Shinobi. Therefore, learning Justus from masters. For more details check out the scan below and check out our other articles about Shinobi Striker to learn more!
The game is due in “early 2018” on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Right now, it still feels like like an early prototype. At Gamescom I was able to try a few flag battles set in one of the forests surrounding Konoha, where Naruto, Boruto and their friends live. The knocked-over tree trunks and barbed wire fences are reminiscent of the manga, but the space is still quite small and feels like a stadium, rather than a natural slice of Naruto creator Masashi Kishimoto’s ninja world. Again, that’s all part of the “tournament” fiction, but I was hoping to feel a little more liberated in Shinobi Striker.
The video does not make mention of a release date, only that a beta will be coming soon, which is also addressed in the “show more” part of the video. In other words, there’s no telling when the beta will drop, but information should be coming very soon given that the devs noted that “make sure your kunai are sharpened because we’ll have a Beta Test coming soon!”
Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker is slated to have a worldwide release for PC, PS4 and Xbox One sometime in early 2018. In Japan, the game will only release for PS4.
