Ninja Gaiden 4 by makers of Bayonetta out in 2025 – Ninja Gaiden 2 Black out now
The mystery game in the Xbox Developer Direct was not quite such a mystery after all, as it’s revealed to be Ninja Gaiden 4 for Xbox and PS5.
Despite Microsoft making a promise of a surprise new game reveal, during its Developer Direct on Thursday evening, the rumours quickly narrowed down what it was to either an Ecco The Dolphin reboot or a new Ninja Gaiden.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s the latter which turned out to be right, although the annoucement that Ninja Gaiden 4 will be a collaboration between series creator Team Ninja and Bayonetta and NieR:Automata developer PlatinumGames was a bit of a shock.
The game will be published by Xbox Game Studios, not Team Ninja and franchise owner Koei Tecmo, but it will be released on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC (and, we’re willing to bet, Nintendo Switch 2) this autumn.
Although the third person action is very much within Platinum’s area of expertise they had previously vowed to stop working on games where they don’t own the IP. Considering the trouble the developer seems to be in at the moment, with no new games in some time and a number of high profile staff exits, it’s not hard to imagine why they backtracked on that.
The brain drain has left Platinum a little short on big name directors though and Ninja Gaiden 4 producer and director Yuji Nakao has never directed a game of this size before, with his most significant credit so far being one of four producers on Bayonetta 3.
Nevertheless, Ninja Gaiden 4 does look like vintage Platinum, with the developers emphasising the speed of the action and what looks like a complex combat and parry system.
There’s also lots of platform-like traversal going on, with wall-running, swinging on a grappling hook, and grinding along rails.
Although series regular Ryu Hayabusa is in the game, and is implied to be playable at some point, the protagonist is new character Yakumo from the rival Raven clan, who can use one of two different styles of combat.
Ever since the reboot in 2004, Ninja Gaiden became one of the few Japanese-made franchises to be closely associated with Xbox, so it’s not hard to see why Microsoft signed up to publish this new entry. Although Tomonobu Itagaki, who was responsible for the reboot, is not involved, as he left Team Ninja some time ago to set up his own studio.
Itagaki was producer and director on the 2008 reboot sequel though and a remaster of that, made in Unreal Engine 5 and called Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, was also announced during the Developer Direct. Surprisingly, it’s out now for £39.99 on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
The problem with that is that the remaster looks arguably better than Ninja Gaiden 4, whose visuals seem more abstract, with a more distant camera. The latter probably means it plays better but it’s a bit awkward seeing the two next to each other.
This year is the 30th anniversary of Team Ninja and they’re really going all out to engineer a comeback for Ninja Gaiden, which hasn’t had a new game in over a decade now.
In fact, there’s also a third game that’s already been announced: a 2D title called Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, which is by the developers of indie title Blasphemous.
Ninja Gaiden 4 by makers of Bayonetta out in 2025 – Ninja Gaiden 2 Black out now