I have been known to get “well into” games, but I can never predict what they’ll be. For example, I played so much of PS Vita/PS3 arcade racing game MotorStorm: RC that it was part of my personality for a month or so, and I’d negatively judge people who weren’t spending every waking moment knocking milliseconds off their best Time Trials. I have that obsessive trait in me, then, but at other times I just enjoy the feeling of a game, the vibes, the essence of having a great time. This is my relationship with Ninja Gaiden. No doubt some people will go all-in on Ninja Gaiden 4, a game that practically begs to be mastered and used as a showcase of skill, but I’ve always seen the series as less of a test of ability I don’t have and more as a finely-tuned piece of violent escapism. What I’m saying is, you don’t need to be a ninja to enjoy Ninja Gaiden 4, and this entry lends itself to that philosophy more easily than those that came before.
Ninja Gaiden 4Developer: Platinum GamesPublisher: Koei TecmoPlatform: Played on Xbox Series XAvailability: Out now on Xbox Series X/S, PC (Steam, Microsoft Store), Game Pass Ultimate, and PS5.
To stick up for myself a little, I’m not terrible at all video games. I’ve been playing them for about 35 years, I’ve finished Ninja Gaiden Black (Xbox) and Ninja Gaiden 2 (Xbox 360), and I can still beat my almost 12-year-old son at everything we play. But, let’s just say age has dampened my abilities and lessened the time I can spend getting “well into” games – this is the reason I’ve never felt I could feasibly play Elden Ring, for example.
Whereas you can’t really Chaos Mode (not quite the same as button mashing, to be clear) your way through a FromSoft game, Ninja Gaiden 4 fits this “I’m going to have a great time even if I don’t 100 percent know what I’m doing at every moment” ethos. It’s no surprise that it’s been developed by Bayonetta studio, Platinum Games. Bayonetta is another of these games that I get great enjoyment from but couldn’t hand-on-heart swear I intended to pull off every move I did. Joyous chaos from start to finish. Ninja Gaiden 4 even supports you in this transformational way of thinking by offering some significant assists to lessen the difficulty – more on those later.
Ninja Gaiden 4 – Difficulty Overview Trailer | TGS 2025 Watch on YouTube
Listen. I wish I was you – the person reading this who has the available brain capacity to not only learn all the moves so carefully created for Ninja Gaiden 4, but understand when they are best used. I’d love to be the guy that makes a living out of uploading complete video game walkthroughs to YouTube, adding nothing to the footage because the games are so impressively played there’s no need to dirty it with a voiceover. I get it. You are the ultimate human, as close to an actual ninja as a sofa-dweller can be, and I am, well… not.