In 2012, the Ninja Gaiden series went dormant and other developers took up the precise action crown that Tecmo had once forged. Aside from a forgettable 2014 spinoff dubbed Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z, fans were starved and left wondering what a modern Ninja Gaiden would resemble. Soulslikes had swept the industry, and fan speculation was rampant that when and if Ryu Hayabusa returned, he would resemble Sekiro, and possible be saddled with a stamina or posture bar.
This year, at last, we found out.
2025 saw a whole host of ninja games break down the door in a flurry of shurikens, and Ninja Gaiden 4 is one of them. Developed by PlatinumGames, it definitely doesn’t have stamina bars or other Soulslike trimmings. It is hard as hell, sure, but the rest of it is a blazing fast experience decked out in stylish neon trappings, about as subtle as an Izuna Drop.
Ninja Gaiden 4 largely succeeds in revitalising its tired old bones, making my fingers ache as I grip my gamepad in the same way that they did when I play the original games. It’s a fond ache, as it’s one of those pains that only occurs in the throes of addiction as I try, over and over again, to defeat the seemingly endless array of tech-infused samurai PMC forces who have taken over Tokyo City. The moves at your disposal are fast and furious, and the dismemberments that occur as you swing from building to building, slicing heads as you go, are infernally satisfying. This game demands mastery in a way that differs from Soulslikes. Rather than emphasising positioning and endurance management, Ninja Gaiden 4 casts you as a blitzing, bursting assassin with a million moves to be reckoned with, and stringing together these techniques to get an extensive combo to appear on the lovely UI is a delicate art.
The worst thing you can say about Ninja Gaiden 4 is that it’s not really a Team Ninja game, and instead feels injected with the same DNA that Platinum’s put in their other projects. I don’t know what Tomonobu Itagaki, the designer who revitalised the series in the 2000s and sadly passed away this October, would’ve thought of Ninja Gaiden 4. It drifts from his distinct vision in many ways. For instance, the new protagonist Yakumo is only a few degrees removed from Raiden in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, both in the way he moves and in his brooding pretty boy personality. It’s a shame that regular protagonist Ryu Hayabusa is mostly a background character until the end of the game. When you do at last get the chance to control him, it feels like coming home to an old friend.
But while this might sound like Metal Gear Solid 2, Devil May Cry 4, or any other game where the old protagonist was supplanted by a new and less cool guy, at least the good folks at Platinum never hid this fact during Ninja Gaiden 4’s promotion. This bombardment of katana violence through cyberpunk Tokyo may be more of Yakumo’s game than Ryu’s, but at least it’s attached to a series that has risen from hibernation, pulsating with energy and ready to unleash an array of decapitations. Here’s hoping we won’t have to wait so long for Ninja Gaiden 5.