Hello everyone, my name is Hiroshi Matsuyama, CEO of CyberConnect2 and I am beyond excited to say that Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 will be released very soon on PS4! February 9th, to be exact.

We made a really exciting announcement for Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 today that I wanted to share with our fans on PlayStation.Blog. About an hour ago we officially announced the Sound Four DLC pack, which will bring the long awaited Sound Four Ninja to the Ultimate Ninja Storm universe as playable characters.

I know that these characters have been highly requested for a long time and we are excited to finally bring them to our fans. We have been hard at work to make sure that The Sound Four are very unique to play as. The team has been pouring over countless manga issues and anime episodes to create the best versions of The Sound Four possible! Please look forward to The Sound Four DLC pack in the coming months.

The team here at CyberConnect2 has worked closely with Bandai Namco for many years now creating great Naruto games for fans around the world. However Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 will be a turning point for us and we knew we had to make this game go beyond fan expectations of what an Ultimate Ninja Storm game could be.

First off the bat is the roster. Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 has the largest roster of characters we’ve put into a Naruto game. If you have a favorite Naruto character, chances are he or she will be playable! The development team has been hard at work creating cool and interesting concepts with a lot of the characters. These range from characters “Awakening” into different forms with all-new attacks and completely different playstyles, to new combo attacks, hidden techniques, and Combination Secret Techniques that require players to use specific characters to unleash amazing attacks. I was even surprised when I saw the team’s proposal regarding the new character line-up.

One of the biggest changes to the gameplay is the dynamic between main team leader character and sub-characters. In previous games your team of three characters consisted of the main party leader and two sub-characters that players could summon for assist moves during the battle. Now players can swap between all three characters during the battle to be used as the team leader bringing with it a host of new strategies for team formations and battle tactics. It’s an incredibly useful tool to help hone and improve your skills.

So far I’ve been chatting about characters and battles but I’d be crazy not to mention the superstar of the game, Story Mode. We take you all the way through the 4th Great Shinobi War to the final battle between Naruto and Sasuke. I may be a bit biased, but when all the pieces come together; atmosphere, animation, art, special effects, gameplay, and music, I feel like it’s a work of art. The final battle is so amazing it even made me cry.

Everyone here at CyberConnect2 is ecstatic to have Naruto fans around the world get their hands on Ultimate Ninja Storm 4. Everyone on the team has a strong connection to the Naruto franchise and it has been our honor to have long time fans and people who may have never seen an episode of the anime come together and experience Naruto in a totally unique and interactive way for all these years!