>>718460054
As much as I don't like several things NG4 is going for, the lack of all these girls is not out of norm, the vanilla release for all mainline NG titles follow a formula: Ryu alone + new cover girl assisting him. The girls were brought over on expanded releases and have been so since Sigma.

NG4 has replaced Ryu with Yakumo and the cover girl this time is Seori, the formula still applies. Although Ayane was a consistent minor cameo even on vanilla releases, if she doesn't appear for at least a few seconds the formula will be broken a bit.

Thus, the girls galore is only for Njnja Gaiden 4 Sigma / Black / Razor's Edge down the line.

I'm actually peeved about Stellar Blade's success in a way, as it actually reinforces Sony's trust in the brand so the already pre-announcement of the sequel in Shift Up's board meeting very likely means it will be published by Sony again, so a PS5/PS6 console exclusive first and a PC version is only released a year later.

If only Shift Up went their own way and took the publishing duties to Nexon, maybe Stellar Blade could've be a simultaneous multiplat release in the future.