Ninja Gaiden 4 must carefully balance its protagonists

The Xbox Developer Direct 2025 on January 23rd brought a lot of news for some games, but no franchise benefited more from it Ninja Gaiden. An Unreal Engine 5 remake, Ninja Gaiden 2 Blackwas in the shadows, and Ninja Gaiden 4 was announced for fall 2025 with Platinum Games as co-developer. The announcements were exciting enough to transcend aging Ninja Gaiden community, which should therefore have plenty of offspring by the end of the year. Ninja Gaiden 4 has been a long time coming and it's great to see it finally move the series forward.

Coming from the NES era, Ninja Gaiden was Koei Tecmo's star action franchise for most of its existence, with Team Ninja ensuring that the transition to 3D in 2004 was as smooth as possible. It was going great until Team Ninja's chief director Tomonobu Itagaki left afterward Ninja Gaiden 2 in 2008, although necessarily due to legal problems. 2012s Ninja Gaiden 3 and 2014 Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z's failures ultimately led to series protagonist Ryu Hayabusa having to be used in crossover operations until the next time Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection suddenly disappeared in 2021. Luckily, the legendary ninja is finally back in top form, but he'll have to get used to sharing NG4 with a fresh face.

How the Ninja Gaiden franchise fights a war on two fronts

It's been over a decade since the last Ninja Gaiden game was released, and now the franchise is preparing to conquer the gaming world on two fronts.

Two equal player characters are new to Ninja Gaiden

Like the spin-off in 2025 Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Players control Kenji Mozu to represent Ryu while the master ninja is busy. Ninja Gaiden 4 seems to mainly care about the newcomer Yakumo. Ryu Hayabusa is still playable and an integral part of the plot, with the story surrounding the Dark Dragon who gave Ryu's sword and the DS Ninja Gaiden have split off their names, but much emphasis was placed on Yakumo in early marketing. Ayame, Kasumi, Rachel and Momiji were all playable in 3D Ninja Gaiden before, but this is the first time a co-protagonist has equal or greater importance to Ryu.

Gameplay is still key to characterizing Ninja Gaiden 4

Until now, Ninja Gaiden 4 It looks like it makes the right choices with Yakumo and Ryu, giving both separate movesets with key overlap as follows Ninja GaidenThe legendary Izuna Drop and Flying Swallow techniques. Ryu Hayabusa represents the series' classic gameplay to the point that his level environments look more like this Ninja Gaiden Black And 2's backgrounds as NG4is the standard cyberpunk cityscape, while Yakumo uses experimental new techniques such as the Nue Style for crowd clearing and a grappling hook. Everything is as clean cut as Ninja GaidenThe bloody action allows it, but problems with these two main ninjas may still have to emerge.

Keeping Ninja Gaiden 4's leads balanced requires ninja precision

Having two protagonists is difficult at best, and Ninja Gaiden 4 has the difficult task of introducing Yakumo while also paying tribute to the icon NG Hero Ryu Hayabusa. Ninja Gaiden already has a story with bland writing and usually allows gameplay mannerisms to convey Hayabusa's character; Establishing Yakumo while Ryu dips in and out of the plot will almost certainly be an uphill battle. On the other hand, Yakumo also can't steal the show from Ryu, whose return is a big part of it Ninja Gaiden 4The appeal.

How Yakumo and Ryu will be handled will only be seen when the game releases, but they would do well to emulate the fourth entry in another stylish action franchise. Devil May Cry 4 had to manage newcomer Nero alongside recurring protagonist Dante, and it showed that giving two player characters comparable playtime and giving the newcomer more time can work. DMC5's increased the number to three main actors, but struck a balance by having Dante appear in crucial moments while Nero and V had more filming time together. Ninja Gaiden 4 will have to find its own way through this problem, but it will have to deal with it if it wants to do justice to both Yakumo and Ryu.