Ninja Gaiden 4 Cover Story

At one point, Ninja Gaiden was top of mind for action gamers across the globe. After a humble yet successful side-scrolling start in the ’80s and ’90s in arcades and on early consoles from Nintendo and Sega, the series successfully reinvented itself as an over-the-top 3D action franchise in the early 2000s. Quickly, Ninja Gaiden became an elite action title thanks to Team Ninja’s first two mainline releases in 2004 and 2008, as well as several re-releases along the way.

However, following 2012’s poorly received Ninja Gaiden 3, the series faded into the background, with only re-releases and spin-offs in the subsequent years before the franchise faded fully into the shadows for a decade. With no releases from 2015 to 2024, you wouldn’t be out of line for assuming the series was dead. But it turns out that, much like its namesake profession, the series was lying in wait, holding out for the right moment to strike.

And 2025 appears to have been that moment, as Ninja Gaiden is back in a big way. A remastered version of the critically acclaimed Ninja Gaiden 2 was released in January, an incredible 2D side-scroller in Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound arrived in July (read our glowing review here), and the main event later this year, a return to the mainline 3D action for which the series is known by modern players, completes the comeback story. Ninja Gaiden 4 unites two studios that built their reputations on stylish action games to bring Ninja Gaiden back in the biggest way possible. I traveled to Tokyo, Japan, to not only visit one of those studios, but also play several hours of the game and speak to the key team members behind Ninja Gaiden 4.