Team Ninja is busy. On the heels of remaster Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, the studio is working on Nioh 3 for 2026 while also overseeing development of this October's Ninja Gaiden 4, which is in the works at PlatinumGames. Though they were once rivals for the fiefdom of Japanese character action games—Ninja Gaiden 2 and Platinum's Bayonetta came out about a year apart, and I remember fiercely arguing my allegiance to the former—now they're working together. And according to the developers, at least, it's been a very good match.
"The game itself is being developed by PlatinumGames, but Team Ninja gets the builds every day, and we have really in-depth discussions in terms of the action and balancing," said PlatinumGames director Yuji Nakao, in an interview with PC Gamer after Sunday's Xbox showcase.
Team Ninja director Masakazu Hirayama added that they "wanted to inject PlatinumGames' unique, stylish approach to action into Ninja Gaiden 4 while retaining the gameplay feel that longtime players expect from the series.
"You'll see the new stylish dynamic expressions that Platinum is known for through the toolset of the new protagonist Yakumo, but when it comes to [original protagonist] Ryu we're very picky about making sure that Ryu feels right," he said.
One new element that reminds me of the parry system in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Platinum's best game) is a "perfect guard." Block at just the right moment and you'll get to follow up with a unique attack.
"If you pull that off, enemies will drop blood essence, which you can utilize by doing an ultimate technique," Hirayama said. "We thought that was a really good fit for the gameplay cycle of Ninja Gaiden and another example of how we've been able to bring together the stylish qualities of Platinum while retaining that distinct Ninja Gaiden gameplay feel."
I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for the meetings between these two studios as they debated what did and did not feel right for Ninja Gaiden. While Hirayama was, of course, perfectly polite in describing their collaboration, both teams have to have extremely strong opinions about the minutiae of hitstop and i-frames and million other little details.
"Even though we both make action games, we have very distinct and different sensibilities when it comes to how to approach action gameplay," Hirayama said. "So it's a challenge, but also I think it was a big accomplishment that we were able to work really closely together, almost as if we were part of the same studio. If there was something that I didn't vibe with, I'd be very honest. We'd be very flat with each other. It was very cool, because we were able to use the logic of action game design to have these productive conversations. We're really good friends."
Ninja Gaiden 4 is out on October 20. For my money, it looks like one of the best games of Summer Game Fest 2025.
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