Franchise fans should love this.
Team Ninja is back with Ninja Gaiden 4, this time teaming up with PlatinumGames for a title published by Xbox Game Studios. Those who enjoyed previous entries in this series will find a lot to like about this new title, which is old school in almost every way. The problem is, that’s not always a positive.
Despite long-time series protagonist Ryu Hayabusa featuring heavily in Ninja Gaiden 4‘s marketing, this is truly a vehicle for new hero, Yakumo of the Raven Clan. You’ll play as Yakuma for the first 65% or so of a 10-hour campaign, and honestly, switching between Yakumo and Ryu is cosmetic at best.
NG4 is all about action, giving your character strong core moves — a light attack, heavy attack, ranged throwables, and a dodge. That’s paired with the Bloodraven form, which literally requires you to collect the blood of your enemies. Provided you’ve got enough blood in a connected gauge, holding down the left trigger and using light and heavy attacks modifies those in different ways; largely, it’s to break past blocks or spare yourself from being hit by an otherwise unblockable move.
While Yakumo will unlock a range of different weaponry — and Ryu has different ninpo — main and boosted attacks are what combat is about. It’s then up to you as the player to make everything look stylish as hell. A great deal of this is accomplished through slicing off an opponent’s limb, which makes it far easier to perform an obliterate move upon them. Holding down the Triangle button will also charge and deliver an ultimate move, which is similarly styled, provided you have enough time to pull it off.
It’s with these heavily stylised moves that I really started to notice Ninja Gaiden 4‘s old school charm. While there are several animations tied to each weapon that Yakumo has at his disposal, quite a few don’t seem to take into account larger context; if you approach a baddie from the left, you’ll certainly notice when Yakumo teleports to its right so a bloodied animation can then trigger.
This extends into larger design, too; I couldn’t help but notice that an escort mission teleported my friend from their original position about a kilometre down a hallway to my side because a cutscene demanded it. While breaking immersion, these types of design choices don’t actually impact gameplay and are forgivable; some, one could argue, are even welcome.
Some are not. Even when playing on a PS5 — and especially right against the campaign’s final few boss fights, which dramatically rocket up the charts in terms of difficulty — you’ll notice extremely long loading times between levels. They’re worse when you die and need to restart a checkpoint.
General quality of life improvements would also be incredibly beneficial to routine tasks within Ninja Gaiden 4. Yakumo will earn Ninja Coin and experience as he fights through hordes of baddies, and can use both to purchase items and skills at select terminals dotted through levels. He can also upgrade his weaponry, but that can be done within a simple menu. What I wouldn’t haven given to be able to just upgrade items, or accept and turn in new quests, from a menu in the same fashion.
Randomly, Ninja Gaiden 4 also decides to feature different levelling up mechanics when Ryu comes into the fold, making move sets available through chests rather than the aforementioned terminals. It’s unnecessary and confusing.
If you’re not in combat, you’re largely traversing obstacles within the world. Yakumo has a number of ways in which to do this, including a grapple, the ability to surf on rails, use updrafts to fly through the air, and, yes, even a surfboard to magically propel himself across still bodies of water. As you move through each of Ninja Gaiden 4‘s 20 chapters, you’ll be chaining these traversal options together in ways that will constantly make you grin.
The issue here, though, is that these sequences — like fights themselves — are overly long and repetitive. In the back half, I would groan when finding a portal to Purgatory — which features longer, more difficult waves of baddies — purely because I didn’t want to spend so much time just going through the motions, fighting, blocking, parrying, and building up my blood meter. Ryu’s sections, while providing a different look and feel to combat, involve bosses you’ve already fought before. Been there, done that.
Finishing the game provides a choice of who you’d like to use to play through a level select function, or higher difficulty level, but by this point I was done with Ninja Gaiden 4. It’s stylish, fast, frenzied, and generally fun — but once through was enough. Those who are diehard fans will likely feel differently, and more power to those who do.
Surprising no one, PS5 Pro is the best way to play through Ninja Gaiden 4 — at least on console — providing a Framerate Priority (Pro) mode that targets 60 frames-per-second (FPS) using a 1440p internal resolution that outputs to 4K, and with PSSR enabled. A regular ol’ PS5 or Xbox Series X will use 900-1000p internal resolution instead.
Ultimately, Ninja Gaiden 4 is fun, but not memorable — something that extends into its general narrative. You’re not there for witty banter though, nor for its plot twists and turns — but instead to decapitate enemies as a bad-ass ninja. In that sense, Ninja Gaiden 4 does exactly what it says on the tin.
Expect Ninja Gaiden 4 on Windows PC via Steam, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5 from today, 21 October. It’s also available via Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Play Anywhere.
Ninja Gaiden 4 was reviewed using a promotional code on PS5 Pro and PS5, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.
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Ninja Gaiden 421 October 2025PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X
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