Team Ninja: Wo Long Won't "Be Difficult Just for the Sake of It"

At the Xbox and Bethesda Showcase, creators of stellar action series like Nioh and Ninja Gaiden, Team Ninja presented its new game, action RPG Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Based on the first trailer, the game resembles Nioh in style and has a story based on Chinese history and mythology.

Not much was revealed during the showcase, but later the title's development producer Masaaki Yamagiwa commented on the difficulty level of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.

Speaking to IGN, Yamagiwa shared that he believes the high difficulty should be justified by the sense of accomplishment the players feel after coping with various challenges. But, at the same time, according to the producer, the difficulty must remain reasonable and fair.

Yamagiwa who previously served as a producer of Bloodborne stated that working on the FromSoftware's title definitely was a useful experience for him so he understands the importance of balanced difficulty.

"Difficult games shouldn’t be difficult just for the sake of it," Yamagiwa said. "The game has to be fair and its difficulty should never be unreasonable. In that regard, it works in my favor that I’m not very good at games myself. I’ll always naturally be judging the fairness of games."

According to another game's producer Fumihiko Yasuda, Wo Long is noticeably bigger than previous Team Ninja games, but it's still Soulslike, so it shares much of the genre's DNA including the level of difficulty. Yasuda, however, hinted that Team Ninja has found a new approach to difficulty, and players will be able to enjoy their victories more than in previous studio titles.

"Making it a challenging game was something we had decided from the beginning," Yasuda said. "There’s no doubt this will be an extremely challenging and demanding game, but we’ve come up with new ways to approach that difficulty. In that regard, players can look forward to a type of satisfaction that wasn’t present in earlier Team NINJA titles."

You can find the full interview with Masaaki Yamagiwa and Fumihiko Yasuda here. Also, don't forget to join our new Reddit page, our new Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram and Twitter, where we are sharing breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.