trust gave us the creative space to make Ragebound something special.
HOW LONG DID DEVELOPMENT TAKE IN TOTAL, AND HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE ON THE TEAM? The project took nearly three years of development. Our core team consisted of around 16 people, but we also worked with several excellent external collaborators and received support from other teams within The Game Kitchen. At certain points in the process, the total number of people involved climbed to over 25. Oh, and we also had the chance to collaborate with the original trio of composers, which was a huge honor and a dream come true for the team!
WHAT DOES THE GAME KITCHEN’S STUDIO STRUCTURE LOOK LIKE? ARE YOU ALL IN AN OFFICE TOGETHER SOMEWHERE, OR WORKING REMOTELY? Right now, The Game Kitchen has two offices: one in Seville, where the studio was originally founded, and a second in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. The company’s entire workforce is distributed not only across these two locations, but also includes quite a few members working remotely from different parts of Spain. To stay connected, we organize team meetups at least four times a year, and hold company-wide gatherings twice a year. It’s our way of keeping close personal contact, even while working from different places.
WHAT MADE YOU CHOOSE TO MAKE RAGEBOUND, RATHER THAN SAY, BLASPHEMOUS III?
Actually, when the NINJA GAIDEN opportunity came to us, Blasphemous II was still in development. But as huge fans of the series, we knew this was a chance we couldn’t pass up, so we expanded the team in order to kick off Ragebound while Blasphemous II was still being worked on.
So in the end, we didn’t have to choose one over the other and, in fact, we even managed to release a Blasphemous II DLC before Ragebound came out!
IS THE HOPE THAT RAGEBOUND WILL GO ON TO BE A SIDE SERIES ABOUT KENJI AND KUMORI? With Ragebound, we poured our hearts into crafting a
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game that fans of the series would enjoy. A lot of care went into creating these new characters and making sure they felt authentic within the world and lore of NINJA GAIDEN. We truly hope that Kenji and Kumori are embraced by players as much as we enjoyed bringing them to life, but as for their future we still don’t know what’s in store… we just hope it’s something exciting!
THIS HAS BEEN A REALLY BIG YEAR FOR NINJA GAIDEN AFTER A LONG TIME OF THE PROPERTY BEING KIND OF DORMANT, WITH NINJA GAIDEN BLACK 2 AND NINJA GAIDEN 4 ALSO RELEASING IN 2025. DID YOU KNOW THERE’D BE SUCH A BIG PUSH FOR THE BRAND HAPPENING THIS YEAR WHEN YOU FIRST STARTED ON THE GAME? Yes! From the beginning of development, we were told that another title was also in the works as part of a larger revival of the NINJA GAIDEN series, which made the opportunity even more exciting for us. Being part of what’s considered the Year of the Ninja is something we couldn’t have imagined even in our wildest dreams! That said, we didn’t know any specific details about the other projects until this year, since they were handled separately by different companies.
IS THERE ANY CONNECTIVE TISSUE BETWEEN NINJA GAIDEN: RAGEBOUND AND NINJA GAIDEN 4, OTHER THAN A BRIEF APPEARANCE FROM RYU HAYABUSA?
As mentioned, the two projects were handled by different teams, so there aren’t any direct connections between their events. However, we’ve worked closely with Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja to make sure that everything in Ragebound fits naturally within the story, lore, and timeline of the NINJA GAIDEN universe.
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