

Ni-Oh, the video game originally based on an unfilmed screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, will be coming out in 2016. According to publisher Koei Tecmo‘s announcement today, the game will be exclusive to PlayStation 4.

Ni-Oh was originally announced in early 2005 when the game was planned to accompany a film based on Kurosawa’s unfilmed screenplay Oni about a blond-haired half-Japanese samurai who is on a quest to discover his destiny in 16th century Japan.

The film project was soon cancelled in September 2005 but work on the video game continued. Although the originally planned release date of 2007 came and went, the game suddenly resurfaced in 2010 when the development studio Team Ninja was announced as taking over the project. Two years later, we heard that the game was in alpha stage. Then, everything went quiet again until earlier this year, when Koei Tecmo renewed their trademark for the title.

And today we hear that the hack and slash game is indeed coming out, will be available for PlayStation 4, and that it is still about a blond haired samurai battling demons. The title may have dropped the slash and now be just Nioh. Here’s a new announcement trailer, which doesn’t give us much more information:

How much of Kurosawa actually remains in the game is still a mystery, although considering the fact that he is not mentioned in the trailer, the answer is probably “very little”. The clearly fairly violent and action filled game doesn’t really remind one of Kurosawa’s work either, although that has of course not stopped game developers earlier, as we saw a decade ago with Seven Samurai 20XX.

Koei Tecmo’s announcement was made as part of the Sony’s 2015 Tokyo Game Show.