New Naruto Game Lets You Filter Out Older Consoles

Oliver Brandt
·2 min read

Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections fight

There’s a new Naruto game on the horizon, combining all the best parts of the Ninja Storm series and adding a host of all-new content. The game is coming to just about every platform under the sun, but if you’re playing on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, or PC, you get an extra feature: the ability to block players on older consoles.

Naruto x Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections is the latest and greatest Naruto arena fighter from CyberConnect2, a development studio known for its high-quality anime fighting games. It’ll launch later this year on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC, which – and we checked – is all of the consoles.

On PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X, the game runs at 60fps, as you’d expect. On older consoles though, it only runs at half the frame rate — just 30fps. Now, that’s not too bad, and having played previous Ninja Storm games at 30fps it’s more than serviceable. If you want to get competitive about things though, there’s no doubt that 60fps is the better option.

Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections does have crossplay for all of its platforms, which is a nice addition, but if you’re playing on one of the new consoles and get matched with someone who’s on the older consoles in PVP, your frame rate will also be dropped to 30fps, to level the playing field.

Some people don’t like that, and Bandai Namco has an answer: just block ‘em. The game will have an option that lets you filter out any of the peasants – sorry, players – on any platform that’s not running at 60fps. That’s a good thing, ultimately, since those playing at 60fps probably don’t want to be halving their frame rate in competitive play.

IGN received the following statement from Bandai Namco Entertainment America:

“We implemented a setting for players on new-gen consoles with a 60FPS cap to allow online matchmaking only with players on respective new-gen consoles if they prefer not to play at 30FPS. The setting is completely optional, and if players wish to match with a wider pool of players, they can turn it off.”

Curiously though, it’s worth noting that the Series S version of the game also runs at 30fps, despite being a “next-gen” console. Which means that players on Series X will be able to filter out players on what is technically the same platform. Wild.

Naruto x Boruto Ultimate Ninja Storm Connections will be released on all of the platforms on November 17, 2023.