You’ve heard what we think of Ninja Gaiden 4 — from an expert point of view. But what if you’ve never played a Ninja Gaiden game before? Will this latest entry in the notoriously difficult action series offer newcomers something they can get to grips with? Will the story make sense if you don’t know your Ryu Hayabusas from your Yakumos?
That was my angle of attack going into my gamescom 2025 session with Team Ninja’s Masakazu Hirayama and PlatinumGames’ Yuji Nakao, co-directors on this eye-catching new co-production from Xbox Game Studios. As Nakao expertly dispatched a boss on a big screen overlooking our behind closed doors presentation, I couldn’t help but marvel at the slick, fast-paced ninja action I was seeing. But I also felt intimidated. I’m no stranger to action games; I love Capcom’s Devil May Cry series, for example, but I know Ninja Gaiden operates on a whole other level.
I also know that Microsoft, which is publishing Ninja Gaiden 4, hopes that that this latest entry appeals not just to hardcore fans of the franchise, but to the wider action game fanbase. That it will, essentially, convince the likes of me to give it a shot. And so my line of questioning is probably a little different compared to what you’ve already seen from the illustrious Ninja Gaiden experts IGN has on-staff. Read on to find out how Team Ninja and PlatinumGames convinced this worrisome action game fan to give Ninja Gaiden 4 a shot.
IGN: I’m a newcomer to the series. For people who have never played a Ninja Gaiden game before but have perhaps heard about it by reputation as a very difficult action game, will they be able to get some enjoyment out of this, or is this very much aimed at people who are veterans of the series who know how to play?
Masakazu Hirayama: So with Ninja Gaiden 4, first and foremost we wanted to stay true to the tradition of intense combat. But with that said, it has been quite a while since the last mainline Ninja Gaiden came out, and we also want to make sure that a wide audience can approach our game and enjoy it.
So to that end, we’ve prepared not only difficulty options, but other features for those new players. In terms of difficulty settings, there is a mode called Hero Mode. So when you choose Hero Mode, it’ll automatically enable a number of assists. So these assists include Auto Guard, Auto Dodge, and another assist that allow you to perform more complicated actions, moves more easily. And these individual assists, once you select Hero Mode, you’re not stuck with the assist. You can actually go into the menu at any time and toggle them on and off individually.
So if you start out in Hero Mode and then you feel like, oh, I want to start dodging manually now instead of having automatic dodge, you can go to the menu and toggle it off and see how you fare. But not only that, the difficulty settings themselves in your first play through, you can freely change between hero mode, normal mode, and hard mode.
So for example, you start your game on hero mode with all the assists. After you beat the first chapter, you turn off the assists, and then after you beat the next chapter, you feel like you’ve developed as a player and it’s getting too easy. You can go to the menu, change to normal, and then after that, if you feel like you need more of a challenge, you can go back and change it to hard, and then you can adjust it on the fly. So you can really curate your combat experience based on your progression as a player.
So for newcomers who may feel like this game might be too difficult for them, I want to assure them that the tools are available for them to train themselves and allow them to progress as a player and enjoy that core intensity of the combat while also providing that tools to allow them to progress through the game.
IGN: And for newcomers who aren’t familiar with Ninja Gaiden but are perhaps familiar with the action game genre, what sets Ninja Garden apart? What are its signature mechanics that other games in the genre perhaps don’t have?
Yuji Nakao: Ninja Gaiden is a series that has been developed by Team Ninja up until now. One of the main characteristics that sets apart Ninja Gaiden from other action games is just that feeling you get when you’re gripping the controller in the sense of precision and responsiveness. Ninja Garden has an intricate feeling of control, but at the same time it’s elegant and precise, and that’s what really sets it apart.
And since this is a collaborative effort — it’s not just Team Ninja, it’s PlatinumGames that’s developing the game — PlatinumGames has injected their own flavor into Ninja Gaiden 4. And that’s best represented in the Bloodraven form, which is the main new system in Ninja Gaiden 4, where Yakumo can unleash these over the top, really expressive attacks. Ninja Gaiden 4 fuses that over the top expression with that elegant precision of a Ninja Gaiden.
IGN: On the story, this is Ninja Gaiden 4, so newcomers will be aware this will be the fourth mainline game in the series. Do you feel that newcomers will be able to understand the story without having played the previous games in the series, or would they benefit from catching up? And how does the story differ from what’s gone before? What do you hope to achieve with the story this time around?
Hirayama: New players can rest assured that they can just jump into Ninja Gaiden 4 and enjoy the story from the jump. It’s not directly connected to the prior games. The world and the setting is the same, but the story itself stands alone. So as long as you know that Ryu Hayabusa is the badass ninja, then you’re good to go with Ninja Gaiden 4.
IGN: You mentioned previously that it’s been some time since the last mainline Ninja Gaiden game. What have you been able to achieve with this game that was impossible before that makes use of all the new technology that has been created since then?
Nakao: In prior Ninja Gaidens you weren’t able to seamlessly switch your weapons on the fly. With the new technology and the new hardware that’s available, we’re actually able to realize that, which really opens up the possibilities in combat.
And then another point is how violence is depicted. So Ninja Gaiden 4, as well as other prior Ninja Gaidens, when you dismember an enemy and you cut into them and there’s blood splatters, we were really able to amp that up in Ninja Gaiden 4 and provide an even more elevated sense of satisfaction and catharsis when you are devastating your enemies.
IGN: You’re collaborating with Platinum this time for Ninja Gaiden 4. What made Platinum the perfect choice? What is it that they bring to the table that’s unique that no other developer perhaps could?
Masakazu Hirayama: PlatinumGames, they have a lot of accomplishments in the action game genre, and they’re really known for their expressive stylish action. So with Ninja Gaiden 4, because it’s a collaborative effort, we really wanted to allow PlatinumGames to bring that to the table in development. And we previously touched on Bloodraven form — we think Bloodraven form is the best representation of how we were able to incorporate it. But not just incorporate it for the sake of adding new things, really incorporating it into the foundation of Ninja Gaiden, so it doesn’t just exist on top of it, but it exists within it.
IGN: Why was now the right time to make a new Ninja Gaiden mainline entry? How will Ninja Gaiden 4 expand the audience for Ninja Gaiden as a whole so it is more popular than it has been in the past?
Hirayama: In terms of the timing of bringing a new Ninja Gaiden into the world, it wasn’t necessarily that we wanted this to happen right now. It was more the result of a series of events.
At Team Ninja we had wanted to make a new Ninja Gaiden for quite a long time. And when that opportunity started to present itself, there was a conversation that took place between the president of Koei Tecmo, Hisashi Koinuma, and the president of PlatinumGames, Atsushi Inaba. They’re actually friends, and they were talking about, wouldn’t it be great if we could work on something in the future? That’s when the idea of creating a new Ninja Gaiden together came up. And then Phil Spencer from Xbox caught wind of this idea and just threw his support behind the project. That’s what got it off the ground.
Like you said, it’s been a long time since the last Ninja Gaiden game. To the end of providing a fresh entry point for new players, we introduced a new protagonist. This protagonist was a proposal from PlatinumGames, actually. And I think we were able to allow PlatinumGames to really incorporate their own take on Ninja Gaiden through Yakumo.
But of course, Ryu Hayabusa is the icon of the series, so we’ve also made sure that Ryu Hayabusa is playable and has a strong presence in the game as well. So I think through this collaborative effort we’ve been able to provide a fresh experience, but it still feels like Ninja Gaiden, and it will be a fresh entry point for new players.
IGN: Why did you accept the proposal for a new protagonist from PlatinumGames, and what exactly is it about this new character that sets him apart from Ryu Hayabusa?
Hirayama: In terms of the reason why we accepted Platinum’s proposal to bring a new protagonist, it was really what I touched upon earlier: providing that fresh entry point for new players, but also because this is a collaborative effort, really allowing PlatinumGames to bring their own ideas to the table. And Yakumo was a vehicle to allow that to happen.
Nakao: So with Ryu Hayabusa, he really retains his distinct qualities from the prior games. In Ninja Gaiden 4, he’s really all about that power and that sense of speed. So when you’re playing as Ryu Hayabusa in Ninja Gaiden 4, you can really experience that raw, primitive Ninja Gaiden experience.
Contrasting with Ryu, Yakumo has this savviness. There’s a cleverness to the way he fights with his arsenal, and he also has those more expressive combat techniques through the Bloodraven form. And through that he has this stylish take of the Ninja Gaiden combat.
So even though they both share the Ninja Gaiden fundamentals, there’s this very distinct difference that you will feel when you are picking up the controller and pressing the buttons and seeing how they respond to those inputs.
IGN: And what is the split in terms of play time, roughly? Is there one character we will spend more time with than the other?
Hirayama: In terms of the story, Yakumo is the protagonist, so the playtime split, Yakumo will have more playtime. So more than half of the story you’ll be playing as Yakumo. With that said, there are dedicated segments in the story for Ryu. And you won’t be playing as Ryu Hayabusa just for a short time and then you’ll be done with it. There’ll be a very robust amount of content for you to enjoy playing as Ryu.
And once you complete the story once, you’ll actually unlock a chapter challenge mode. This will allow you to freely play different chapters in the game and you’ll be able to play as either character. So you could, after your first playthrough, play through all the chapters as Ryu. Conversely, you could play Ryu’s story chapters as Yakumo. So there’s a lot of content that you can enjoy after you do your first playthrough.
Xbox Games Series Tier List
Xbox Games Series Tier List
IGN: I’d love to know your favorite new mechanic we’ve not seen in a Ninja Gaiden game before.
Hirayama: My favorite new aspect is the Bloodraven form. So Bloodraven form, it really captures the new kind of expressiveness that PlatinumGames has brought to the table in Ninja Gaiden. But not only that, there was a lot of back and forth with regards to Bloodraven form throughout the development of this game. So Team Ninja would get the build from Platinum and then play the game and provide their feedback. But a year ago Bloodraven form was just so OP, like as long as you activated Bloodraven form, you could really just defeat any enemy. And we were looking at it as like, well if Bloodraven form dominates everything, we’re going to lose the Ninja Gaiden essence. And there was a lot of interesting back and forth that we went through to arrive where we’re at today.
You’ll see that when we were incorporating Bloodraven form into the Ninja Guide game cycle. For example, when you use Bloodraven form and you attack an enemy, it’ll increase the likelihood of doing a dismemberment. When you dismember an enemy in Ninja Gaiden, you can perform an Obliteration Technique. Obliteration Technique is basically just a finisher, like an execution style attack. And then once you execute an enemy, they’ll drop a blood orb essence. Essence was in previous Ninja Gaidens, and it basically functions the same way in Ninja Gaiden 4. And then once that essence drops, you convert it into an Ultimate Technique using Ultimate Guidance. I know I’m throwing a lot of terminology at you! But we were able to bring this Bloodraven form into Ninja Gaiden and really incorporate it into that foundational Ninja Gaiden game cycle. Finding ways of exploring that was very interesting from a development perspective.
Nakao: In addition to the Bloodraven form, there’s also the base form. Within the base form I feel like we’ve been able to evolve Ninja Gaiden in terms of the new type of techniques that are available. Ninja Gaiden 4 introduces Just Guards and Just Dodges. In Ninja Gaiden, the dodging move is called the Reverse Wind. In Ninja Gaiden 4 you can actually do a Just Dodge Reverse Wind. And this really opens up the variety and possibilities of Ninja Gaiden’s combat and serves to continue to evolve that high speed back and forth between offense and defense that really makes Ninja Gaiden distinct.
Hirayama: And building on the new possibilities that are available in Ninja Gaiden 4, sometimes you’ll see enemies glow up in red when they’re about to unleash a powerful attack. You can actually use Bloodraven form to counter that attack using an offensive ability. This especially becomes apparent in the boss battles, where you can not just be defensive, but you can actually use aggression to counter enemy attacks. And because of that, Ninja Gaiden 4’s boss battles especially feel very distinct and provide a new kind of intensity compared to our previous entries.
Ninja Gaiden 4 launches on October 21 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
