New One Piece, Naruto Games Reportedly Canceled by Bandai Namco

Some unannounced games in the worlds of One Piece and Naruto have supposedly been either paused or canceled entirely amid some larger shakeups at Bandai Namco, according to new reports. It’s been suggested that work on these unknown games is uncertain at the moment due to a underwhelming demand, and the games in flux apparently extend beyond anime titles, too, with a Nintendo project currently on hold at Bandai Namco as well.

News of the state of these Naruto and One Piece games supposedly in the works over at Bandai Namco comes from Bloomberg which said that the publisher had either halted or canceled some of its projects. Bloomberg speaks of a “lackluster demand,” though it seems the demand here is referring more to games in general as the gaming industry continues to cut costs by canceling projects and laying off workers. There were no references made to a lack of demand for Naruto and One Piece, specifically, which makes sense given that the latter is more popular than ever after Netflix’s live-action Naruto series even if the franchise is currently going on a hiatus. That does made it even stranger that Bandai Namco would be reconsidering a One Piece game, however, given its popularity and the fact that we’ve gotten several One Piece games in the last four years.

Bandai Namco publishes tons of anime-themed games — pretty much any of the more modern ones that you can think of — so there’s no telling what kinds of games these One Piece and Naruto projects were. Many of Bandai Namco’s anime games are arena fighters like the wonderful Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero while others are a bit more open like Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, but they all typically circle back around to beating up anime baddies.

But while anime adaptations may be the publisher’s bread and butter, its work extends beyond that scope as well. Bandai Namco published Elden Ring and other Souls games, for example, and also works with Nintendo on some projects. Two Nintendo franchises Bandai Namco works on are the Mario Kart and Smash Bros. games with a broader team established recently to work closer with Nintendo (though those franchises were not specifically mentioned in the announcement). Mobile games are another focus of Bandai Namco which are also supposedly being impacted by these decisions made internally. Another game, Blue Protocol, was recently confirmed for a shutdown early next year despite having only just released recently. The Western version of the game which was to be published by Amazon has also been canned.

As a result of these cancelations and paused games, Bandai Namco is also reducing its workforce with around 200 employees said to be affected. These employee losses also contribute to an already brutal year for gaming studios in terms of layoffs and lost talent.