Dear Ninja,
It's always fun to write our yearly recap, and this past year is hands down the best year for Nin Online yet, so what an honor to be writing this - 13 years since the game was first announced on our humble little forum in 2013, and 23 years since I first had the idea to make Nin Online!
For those who have joined us recently, maybe you'd be interested to read all about how the game was created and read about my dearly departed co-creator, Robin Perris, as well.
Read about the History of Nin Online
Pre-Steam Launch
The half a year that passed before Steam launch feels almost like ancient history now, but it would be a disservice to ourselves not to highlight the work that was put into the game as preparation for the Steam launch prior to June.
Some significant updates pre-Steam launch were...
Water Splash & Dust Animations when running
Crafting System & Workbenches
Mining System
3D Hitbox Previews
NPC/Boss/Mob Casting Time (Before, all NPC jutsu casting was instant)
Interrupting NPC Casting
NPC Breathing Animations
Character and Sky reflections on water
Account Rename In-game System
Jutsu Queue System
Melee Combat Animations
Dashing & Leaping
Guarding/Blocking
Barber/Hair Dresser System
Mission Indicator on NPCs
Weapon Stamina Usage
Tanzaku Gambler Mission Arc
Weapon Skins
Transforming into NPCs
Improved AI Pathfinding
Fishing Research Missions
Chimamire, the Blood Shark Boss
NPC Substitution Technique
Indoor Day/Night Lighting
Weapon Summoning Techniques
New Post Processing Effects (Brightness, Contrast, Bloom, Chromatic Aberration and Film Grain FX)
Guild Leveling Rework
Tournament Spectator Camera
Blood Weapon Crafting
Moved Gold Ninja to in-game cash shop, deprecating old forum based Cash Shop completely (required for us to launch on Steam)
Added 100+ new item drops to mob loot tables to make hunting more exciting
This is cherry picking only the biggest changes as well, it doesn't include the hundreds of bug fixes and developer editor features and quality-of-life improvements. If you'd like to see the full list of changes, pre-Steam updates are available to view on our Official Discord Server!
Steam Launch
Nin Online launched on Steam in mid-June 2025, to slow but steady wave of new players. A total of 84,878 players have added Nin Online to their Steam Library. This may seem like a big number, every day close to 200 players add Nin Online to their Steam Library, but it is still nothing compared to the size of the games market, which we hope to tap into in the years to come!
4th Highest Rated F2P MMORPG Launch
To my own surprise, Nin Online is ranked as the 4th Highest Rated Free-To-Play MMORPG launch of 2025 on SteamDB (on default site settings barring any games with less than 500 reviews). This puts us higher than comparable games with hundreds of millions of dollars in development funding and budget, and teams 100x the size of Hitspark.
Nin Online closed out the year ranked as the 11th highest-rated Indie Free-to-Play MMORPG and the 44th highest-rated Free-to-Play MMORPG of all time on Steam.
These results were especially meaningful to me, as Nin Online was created in direct response to the AAA industry’s shift away from ethical monetization and thoughtful game design, in favor of excessive monetization, convenience-driven systems, and mass-market appeal. It signals that we're definitely doing a lot right.
Player Growth
Since launching on Steam in June, we've continued to reach new players and reach player numbers we've never seen before in our ninja world. Even on launch day, the influx of new players was met with so much joy from our player base, with daily active users doubling instantly.
Despite the population slowing down later in the year, we're sitting at around a 300 player online peak on Steam alone (this was around 80-100 before Steam). We're hopeful that 2026 updates as well as events we'll be participating in with Steam will draw more players in!
We've also improved player retention with the updates around the end of the year, which significantly streamlines and improve the PvP experience for players, especially at a lower level.
Launch Month Updates
The Steam launch generated renewed interest in the game’s development, which was accompanied by the financial support needed to accelerate updates. Since then, we’ve been able to significantly improve our workflow, expand the team, and bring additional hands on deck at Hitspark.
During the first month of development post-launch, we were focused largely on ensuring the game engine could handle the influx of new players and addressing the feedback of players new to the game.
These are some of the changes we made in just the first month!
Reworked our project dependencies and allowed Nin Online to become a self-contained application without requiring/prompting users to install .NET Runtimes manually to play the game
Added OpenGL 3.3 Fallback support for players on older devices
Rebalanced early game missions to be more beginner friendly and ease players into the game
Added new grinding spots to allow for more players to simultaneously start their ninja journey
Added Steam Login (Preliminary feature on Legacy system)
Auto Assign Stat Points feature
New Server Listing API
New Early Game Jutsu
New Mission System featuring Location Markers, Mission Chapters, Task Descriptions and more!
Borderless Fullscreen Mode
Video Playback Support in-engine and Introduction video when new character is created
Reworked Volume Scaling to be more predictable in settings
Improved Dialogue Interface and Dialogue Zoom-in Effect
Keyboard Navigation to ESC Menu
Mission Prompts and Mission Completion Window
Daily Mission Selection System
Unbinding Keys completely
Repeatable Missions System
Improved Relogging In Speed
AFK People Sleep
Mouse Controls
Chromium Login for Legacy Login System (previously opened browser windows)
Smooth Zoom (Previously zooming in/out had fixed steps 1x, 2x etc.)
Special Tournament modes (First blood, Equal stats, Sudden death, Melting, First to X hits)
Language auto-detection for Brazilian players
This was only in June, the first 2+ weeks of development post-launch! I did not get much sleep during this time because I was trying to address as many issues as possible for as many people as possible. This once again, is only the more interesting updates of that month. There were hundreds of bug fixes and smaller features and changes as well!
Post-launch Updates (July - August)
The next two months, Nin Online saw the most significant updates in it's lifetime. This can be attributed to two things, and I really hope people don't underestimate the second one.
Increased development support
Years of preparation work on the engine and rewriting the engine to be able to support updates of this caliber
Prior to 2020, Nin Online was written in Visual Basic 6, a programming language and IDE from the 90s. It was very outdated, lacking even basic modern computer functionality like scroll wheel support when editing code.
From 2020-2021, we rewrote the entire game engine (Server and Client) to be fully C# .NET.
The years following, 2022-2024 was filled with tedious work replacing all our dated technologies over time with modern alternatives and sometimes fully from the ground up. It also involved rewriting a lot of legacy code that was holding the engine back and modernizing code practices. Of course, we also couldn't completely halt development of the game while doing all this modernization, so the Nin Online community still received hundreds of updates ever
Thanks to all these years of work, Nin Online is in a good spot for expansion of features and content. We've put in so much work into the engine that we've been able to add entire features within the span of a day.
July
It's crazy to think that this is only a small portion of all the updates in July alone.
More Coverage for Translations/Localization in the game
Ryukyu Trains Expansion
New Repeatable & Daily Missions
Most Binded Items became tradeable
Item Drop Rarity Indicators
Stat Balancing in unfair Tournament Match Ups
Faming Offline Blessing Players
Locating Mission Start Points in Mission Logs
Tutorial Pop-up Guides
Fainting Rework
Reverse Knockbacks (Pulling) Feature
Camera Panning in Cutscenes
Using Equipment in Waiting Area of Events/Tournaments
Shop Expansion
Housing District Expansion
Consistent Zoom Levels for all players (No more screen advantage)
Advanced Fog Effect for Mist Village and more maps
Added toggle settings for individual Desktop Notifications
Additional Anti-cheat System for Botting
New Route from Sand Village to Kinsen Quarters (8 New Open World Maps) and New Route from Mist Village to Takumi Village (7 New Open World Maps)
Swear Word Filter in Usernames
Jutsu Weapon Requirement Feature
New Graphical Damage Numbers
Increased Corp Sizes
New AI Moderation Systems
War Crimes & Military Police Rework
New Timing-based Mining mini-game
Secondary Entrances to all villages
News Popup on Main Menu
UI Window Opening Animation
Scroll-wheel Support on Minimap
Pathways to become Missing Ninja in various places outside of Prison and being Exiled
Berry Bushes and Fruit Cactuses
Kage Approval Rating System
Reworked Cloak of Invisibility Technique and Sensory System
Added Preliminary Visual Manipulation Genjutsu Support
Added Music Name UI at bottom left of screen
Animated Hitspark Splash Screen
New Mysterious Well Questline
Hyoketsu Prison Released
Criminal Ranks (eg. S-Rank Criminal)
HP and Melee Damage Rebalancing including Melee Damage with Level scaling for everyone
Right-click Chatbox Messages to report
New Teams HUD
Tournament Teammates Indicators
August
As I'm writing this, I'm starting to begin to believe we've managed to make more outward facing updates to the game each month than entire years prior to this.
Drop Rate Blessings
Arrest Missions
Crafting Missions
New Item Pickup Animation (Where item flies into player)
Right-click to copy text or reply in Chatbox
Bandages, Honey and Antidote Crafting Update
Added total of 24 new monster drops and tons of new craftable recipes
2 New Guild Perks (Gatherer and Artisan Perks)
Ramps / Slopes Traversal Feature
Added Boss HP Bar Feature that uses a larger HP Bar for certain NPCs
NPC random in-world chat bubble messages
Scheduled Server Maintenances Feature (Allowed us to schedule maintenances)
Player Target Window now displays the Buffs and Debuffs that user currently has active
New Keyboard Targeting System
HUD Buttons fade out when inactive
Melee Attack Sounds
Discord Notifications for In-Game Happenings
Hand Sign Animations when Casting Jutsu (Crazy this wasn't a thing before!)
Action Prompt HUD (X Key to Pickup etc.)
Map Links Display HUD (Map you're entering's name is displayed on screen)
Tutorial explaining Dashing & Targeting
Fishing Lines now have a curve and sway with the wind
Sounds are throttled when the same sound is playing too many times
Halloween Event
Added a ton of items to crafting, event shop, Halloween event, cash shop
Weapon/Taijutsu Rebalancing
Village Inns Added
Animal Pal Cosmetics Added
New Clan Leadership Systems (Hokuto Spheres)
Raid Music
New Players Start with Basic Jutsu
Housing Panel Upgrades
Added Clan Leader Clan Icons
Clan Leaders are able to manage Clan House furniture
Improved Fire Jutsu Animations
New Mobs - Blight Leeches (Level 19) and Crimson Leeches (Level 21) & Missions
Improved Tree Arena map graphics
Custom House Entrance names
Animated Wires (from building to building)
Maps, Organizations and Items Renamed to Original Nin Lore
Headband Selection UI
Defame on Fainted Screen
Player Equipment Viewable on Player Info Window
Avatar Maker in Ninja Menu
Level Range Exclusive Bosses Unlocked
Team Deathmatch Events
EXP Orbs Animation
Recommended Server Feature
Water-Only NPCs Feature
Support for Decimal Cast Times for Techniques
Removed OpenTK Requirement from Client and .NET 8 Upgrade
Player Login Queue System
Beginner players start with 10 Jutsu slots instead of 5
Hawk Server (South America Launch)
One of the happiest moments for me this year is finally being able to bring back our South America/Brazilian Game Service.
In the early 2020s, we had a Brazil Server, but it was impossible to keep sustaining due to costs, lack of monetary support and difficulties setting a stable server with infrastructure in the region being limited. This coupled with the game engine still not being ready to support two servers easily, we sunset the service once before finally re-opening the service again in August 2025.
We instantly saw an outpouring of support from the community, which almost unanimously chose for the new server to be a 'Fresh Start' server. In a single day, the player base saw a large spike in players flooding the new Hawk server and beginning their ninja journey in a brand new ninja world.
Since launching the Hawk server, South America has out-paced North America as our largest player base, and I'm happy to see that Brazilian gamers love Nin Online! We're continuing to look into how we can improve support for the region.
Future Expansions
We hope to expand to more regions in the future as it becomes more sustainable cost-wise and for our team to handle more regions, localizations and manage more services and players.
Post-launch Updates (September - December)
We weren't slouching for the remainder of the year, bringing you even more exciting updates once we were done with polishing the game and ensuring a better early game experience for new players.
September
A lot of early September was spent improving support for the Brazilian server as well as polishing TDM Mode and new mission types. After August, more time was spent working on content as well instead of just features (the below will mostly be features but also some important content updates!).
Added BR-PT Hieroglyph support
Preliminary Asian Language support (Japanese, Chinese, Korean)
Added Blessing HUD toggle between different blessings when more than one is active
Steam Login System (Completely New Login System for Steam Users)
Mission Deprecation System
Anti-hacking/Anti-cheat system improvements
New, faster map transitions
Chatbox Spacing Improvement
Sticky Venom Technique
Moved Mist and Sand documents area into a separate room
Corp Reworks
Added Metamorphosis Buffs Feature
Added new Shop layout for Scribes
Added capability for Jutsu attack animations to cast at max range when target is out of range
Heal, Revive and Exploration Mission Tasks
Added Patrol Duty Missions
Hats that hide hair now make your hair look like it's been stuffed into the hat instead of going bald
Improved Combusting Vortex Technique artwork
Weapons no longer contribute to Jutsu damage
Capture The Flag Events
Kuraken Tentacle and new Daily mission 'Too Many Tentacles!'
4 New Arenas
Tons of Clan Items
Added Daily Healing and Reviving Missions for Medical Units of each village in their base
Added Great White Sharks and Daily Missions
Premium Messenger Hawks
October
October focused a lot on content updates, not mentioned much below, as well as the new Capture The Flag mode!
Hotkey bar now disables visually when charging chakra and guarding
2nd CTF Arena
Flag Direction for CTF Mode
Local Geo Location Service (Removed reliance on 3rd party services for Geo Location Lookup)
Knockup Feature for Jutsu
Items Obtained HUD became a universal real-time actions notification HUD (displaying event updates and EXP gain)
More Halloween Event Updates
Improved Realistic Gravity Physics & better arc motion when jumping (Acceleration and Terminal Velocity)
New TDM Arena (Waterfall Arena)
Wild Rabbits Mobs
Lots of new items, cash shop items, event prizes and craftable items
November
November focused a lot on a major PvP rework that made the game world a lot friendlier to early game players, streamlined the PvP button, and provided more clarity on who is an enemy. This update addressed the longest running complaint from new players and has since shown to improve player retention.
Winter Event
Land of Iron Rebalancing
In-game Discord buttons to link to official village discords
Crystal Beach Cave Region with bunch of new content
Replaced AI Generated animations in Introduction video in line with player feedback
New Fishing Mini-game
When you first login to Nin Online, you will be prompted to scale your UI
Added Basic NPC Platforming
Added new (Tilda key default) Minimap overlay feature and shortcut
Tunneller Mount
New Romaji Boss Drops
Tonfa Rework
Reworked RP Systems for Exiling/Pardoning
Lots of Art Fixes
New Toad Mountain boss - Gamakura and new legendary weapon
Reworked Game Map Data to use JSON (which allowed us to later add many more map related features with ease)
Complete PvP Mode Rework
Bounty System Rework
Enemy Territory Feature
Duel System
December
Admittedly a slower month for Hitspark. In December, I took more time off because I worked over the new year last year and regretted it. I told everyone on the team to take the last 2 weeks of the year off if they could, and we held our own little Secret Santa.
Inappropriate Name Reporting
Max level can now be set in the server settings
Added repeatable Bounty Missions for Special Division Corps
Reworked entire player saving system
Team Duel feature
Added Christmas Cash Shop Furniture Items
Added Ring Equipment
Added Equipment Slot Item Type Preview Icons
Added Weapon Type Requirement to Items/Equipment
Added Bounty Claiming Mission Objective
New Crafting Recipes and Items
NPC Loot Dice Roll System
Bounty Station Interface
Weapons now scale attack speed based on AGI
Added Map Zone Indicators on HUD
Overall Development Progress
Some years, I've recorded our progress in terms of easy to collect numbers from our workspaces; last year, this was...
670 New Items
93 New Mobs, Bosses & NPCs
33 New Jutsu (Not all released)
28 New Hairstyles
Over 500 Programming Tasks Completed
4954 Code Commits (13.5 Code Commits a Day)
228 Patches Pushed (1 Update every 1.6 Days)
Summary
Firstly, I want to thank my excellent Hitspark Team for working with me this year to get so much done. Without you guys, all this wouldn't have been possible. Thank you to the artists who have contributed art to the game as well as Game Masters who spend their time making sure the community is having fun with Events and putting out fires (metaphorically) on an almost daily basis.
Secondly, thank you to the players who have been around for longer than just a few months now, who have seen the game blossom over the years. I've learnt a lot from working on Nin Online and you guys have seen it in real-time. In all honesty, I'm getting a lot older and my tolerance for handling situations personally has decreased as I have to focus more on my health, so you probably won't hear from me personally as much, but I'll always be here and working on the game.
Lastly, to the new players who joined us in 2026. You're really lucky to have joined us in the best time of Nin Online's history thus far. Nin Online is thriving now, but it's had a really long history and it would mean a lot to me if you learned about the history of the game and the man who inspired the game and made it happen in many more ways than one, who is no longer with us.
Thank you for playing Nin Online and I can't wait to show you ninja what is in store for 2026!