April 22, 1998. Murase also performed on the track "Tenchu Suite - aminina", an album-exclusive composition with lyrics by Sumie. "Addua" and "animina" were released as singles on the same day as the album. Release Tenchu released in Japan on February 26, 1998. Sony had no plans to release Tenchu outside Japan due to its stealthy depiction of ninjas clashing with the action-oriented Western portrayals, but American publisher Activision was impressed by the game and successfully pitched for the rights. The Western version was co-produced by Yamamoto and Larry Galka. Galka remembered Tenchu being seen as a big risk for Activision due to its gameplay innovations and setting. The Western version included two more levels "Cross the Checkpoint" and "Execute the Corrupt Minister", and alternating layouts for missions. In addition, there were technical improvements to polish the graphics and stabilize the frame rate. Asakura returned to compose tracks for the new levels. An early version of the new level "Cross the Checkpoint" has a female boss character looking like a young girl, which needed changing to make her more mature so it would pass Sony's approval criteria. A further addition was the level editor and cheat menu, which Hisamatsu remembered as a challenging addition as they needed to incorporate it onto the limited spare space on the game disc. Bug fixes carried on past the new year. In the United Kingdom, the game was censored to replace shurikens with throwing blades due to laws prohibiting kunai use and display. The game released in the West on August 31 in North America and during October in Europe. The Western version was released in Japan on February 22, 1999 under the title Tenchu: Shinobi Gaisen, with cover art drawn by manga artist Hiroaki Samura and a new opening. This version released in the budget "The Best" series on November 11, 1999. A standalone expansion compiling one hundred user-created levels was released in Japan on that same date under the title Tenchu: Shinobi Hyakusen. Reception Tenchu: Stealth Assassins was very successful both in Japan and overseas; by 2003 it sold 250,000 units in Japan, and a total of over 1.4 million copies worldwide. It was Activision's highest-selling title for that year. It would be Acquire's best-selling title until the 2018 release of Octopath Traveler. Former Activision producer David Grijns estimated in 2019 that the game ultimately sold five million units across its original