10 GAMES THAT ARE LEADING THE NINJA AND SAMURAI REVIVAL

Have your katana at the ready: Japan's finest warriors are gaming's hot topic, and these titles are the ones to play.

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Japan has long been the spiritual home of video games, all the way back to the early console days. But only recently have culturally Japanese games captured the imagination of gamers around the world. Feudal swordplay and stealth action are hotter than they've ever been – and this hasn't happened in a vacuum.

There's also a newfound appreciation of Japanese media, from award-winning shows like Shogun to Netflix snapping up the entire Studio Ghibli catalogue. But nothing beats virtually donning a kabuto helmet or sharpening your throwing stars for real immersion in the time period. And we have come a long way from the basic side-scrolling adventures of the 8-bit and 16-bit generations.

Modern console gamers are spoilt for choice when it comes to open-world stealth-and-slash-'em-ups, with samurai playstyles letting you get up close with sword-based combat and ninjas preferring the path of the silent assassin. Indie developers are also having a moment, with spectacular yet fiendishly tough platform games in vogue.

But which ones are worth clearing some SSD space on your PC or PlayStation for? Here we've picked out the best titles this genre has seen over the past decade.

10 Nioh

This samurai action Soulslike traces its lineage back to the 1980s and the 8-bit Ninja Gaiden games.

The upcoming Nioh 3 will pay homage with its own ninja combat style, but the original's merciless melee fighting is already up there with the best of the genre. It's set during Japan's turbulent Sengoku period, and puts you in the sandals of a fictional version of English sailor William Adams, one of the first foreign samurai.

2017

09 The Messenger