Naruto is a property that rivals Dragonball Z in scope and popularity, and in the games space its legacy has continued. There have been plenty of titles centered around the character and his story, but the Ultimate Ninja Storm series is the most popular of all, having begun in 2008, covering the pre-Shippuden arcs of the anime and manga.

However, while those games do well to put players in the shoes of characters from the series, their high barrier of entry and often unwelcoming nature due to their chosen genre can be a hard sell. Naruto is best when putting its setting and people at the forefront, and an MMO could accentuate these features and improve on the limitations of Ultimate Ninja Storm to be something special.

Naruto’s setting offers enough diversity to justify an MMO experience, and later storylines could facilitate expansions.

The role of a shinobi in Naruto would make side quests and exploration, two essential pillars of the MMO genre, plausible.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm is great for fans of fighting games, but its complex battle system can be daunting for anyone not familiar with the genre.

Naruto’s World and Characters are its Greatest Strength

With hundreds of manga chapters and anime episodes under its belt, Naruto did a lot right, but while battles take up a significant portion of the story, the best elements of the property are in its character interactions and its immense world-building. Naruto‘s five great shinobi villages do well to add to the political intrigue of each distinct arc. Each is fundamentally different in culture and appearance, making people from each feel unique. In their roles as a shinobi (be it Genin, Chunin, Jonin, or Kage), the majority of characters’ time in the show is spent going on missions of ascending difficulty, much like side missions and mercenary-esque quests in many open-world RPGs.

This could lend itself beautifully to the MMO genre, taking cues from the likes of Final Fantasy 14‘s Eorzea which has components of a huge map that are instantly recognizable. The storytelling in Naruto and Naruto Shippuden is great, but it is very dependent on the setting itself, so while the Ultimate Ninja Storm games do well to facilitate the narrative, an MMO would be more suitable for giving more players broader access to the characters, world, and storylines, with other areas references in the show and manga possibly being added in later expansions.

Ultimate Ninja Storm’s Fighting Focus Makes it an Acquired Taste

The Ultimate Ninja Storm series has become the go-to video game adaptation for Naruto fans. It’s enjoyed a sturdy reputation, but it can feel uninviting to those who aren’t familiar with the fighting game genre. Most of the gameplay prioritizes tense battles over meticulous world-building, meaning casual fans have a learning curve to endure before they can even appreciate the game’s more acute details. MMOs are deliberately slower-paced to help people seamlessly get to grips with the mechanics, so though some can be hard to understand, others like the aforementioned Final Fantasy 14 and Guild Wars 2 are tremendously accessible.

Naruto has more potential in the games space than it is currently using. Games like Naruto: Rise of a Ninja show that they can work in different genres and with different philosophies, but after years of fantastic world-building and intricate character development, the time is right for the IP to use these components to craft a worthwhile MMO experience. For fans of the license, the prospect of crafting their own shinobi and finding a place in Naruto‘s bigger picture is very enticing, and could perfectly juxtapose the fight-focused offerings of recent years and improve on what Ultimate Ninja Storm has done.