Xbox Was Knocking On Doors About Ninja Gaiden 4 ‘Six-Seven Years Ago’ – Pure Xbox
GuestGuestLogin | Sign UpPure XboxGuestLogin or Sign UpThe project was officially announced this weekThe surprise of the Xbox Developer Direct this week was the announcement of Ninja Gaiden 4, and according to Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, it’s been a long time in the making.In the same chat with Gamertag Radio, he revealed how Xbox was actually knocking on doors around “six-seven years ago” about this project:”That was a project we kind of knocked on some doors and said ‘hey, what if’ like six-seven years ago”Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja also noted in the Direct this week how “it’s been many years” since it “stealthily, like ninjas – teamed up with PlatinumGames”, so it’s a “happy” moment to finally be able to share the news with everyone.This particular series has a special connection to Xbox – with the original entry in the trilogy starting as an Xbox ‘exclusive’. All up though, it’s now been “more than 10 years” since the previous major Ninja Gaiden release (Ninja Gaiden 3).Phil also added in his latest interview how Xbox’s relations with Koei Tecmo (and Japanese developers in general) are going great right now:”I feel great about our relationships with the publishers in Japan, it’s taken a lot of flights, a lot of FaceTime, a lot of listening…making sure I’m hearing their feedback, I think about Metaphor last year and our partnership on that game…the work that we’ve done with Sega…being on stage with Square…but yesterday with Team Ninja…just to get to roll it out yesterday and see the response is fantastic.”In addition to Ninja Gaiden 4, which is due out Fall 2025, Xbox yesterday shadow-dropped Ninja Gaiden 2 Black on Series X|S, Game Pass, and other platforms.A shadow drop for this Unreal Engine 5 remasterWhat a way to start the Dev Direct!Missed the event? Here’s a recapAre you excited about Ninja Gaiden 4? Have you played Ninja Gaiden 2 Black yet? Tell us in the comments.About Liam DoolanLiam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He’s been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief.Comments 16I just hope this means future Koei Tecmo games don’t skip Xbox anymore. I don’t care about Sony’s first party games but I would have played Rise of the Ronin.It always struck me as odd that with the rise of the soul-like and the popularity of punishing games we haven’t seen a new Ninja Gaiden sooner.Man that’s crazy, 6-7 years in development. This is what I’m talking about (in the other thread) dev costs are sky high as is dev time in a lot of cases. That’s got to have cost hundreds, hundreds of millions. Either way, I’m happy to see it coming. I’ve just got into the series – I always thought it was a souls-like but it’s a fairly accessible DMC-like game.@KaloudzIt probably means they started talking about a potential sequels 6-7 years ago rather than the full development time.@Sol4ris True as that is my friend, it still counts as time spent paying for the studio to run; going from conception to release, I mean, if that makes sense?@Kaloudz It probably also doesn’t help that Team Ninja and PlatinumGames games has been developing other game in the mean time. This was probably on the back burner for them and probably was a “We’ll get to it when we’re not busy” project@AverageGamer That’s very true. I wasn’t aware they were working on other heavy hitting projects. Truth be told I haven’t heard much from them in my feeds since, what was the one they did after Scalebound’s cancellation?@Kaloudz Platinum Games has literally worked on 12 games since Scalebound cancellation… Their biggest one are Nier: Automata and Bayonetta 3. But they made astral chains for the Switch, helped with FF:XVI, and remaster The Wonderful 101. We don’t talk about Babylon’s Fall@AverageGamer 🤣🤣🤣 Well then, that told me. I literally had no clue that they were as plentiful as that with their output.@Lup Pity you don’t care about Sony games, because Ghost of Tsushima was far better than Rise of the Ronin.@NexoziPlayed it, that’s why I don’t care. Bored me to tears.@Lup Don’t get Rise of the Ronin then, because I never even finished it.@Kaloudz ya say accessible but go play those challenges on ninja gaiden black see if ya still think that 😂😂😂 they’re hard asf😭@Decimateh To be fair, I’m playing on the easiest of modes, and I’m just spamming “Y” so that nothing has a chance to move lol!@Kaloudz TBH… Japanese developers tend to have a very high output of games. It really only the western developers that struggling and taking 6-7 years to release a game. Look at Naughty dog, they released Last of US part 2 in 2020. The same year Ryu Ga Gotoku release Yakuza like a dragon. Ryu Ga Gotoku has release 9 games (not including remasters) since then while Naughty Dog has only released 3 and they’re all remasters.@AverageGamer Hmm that’s actually a very interesting point, and something that should really be an eye opener for other devs (Rare and Undead, for instance). The longer a Dev cycle, the more money that is needed to keep the upkeep going. It’s amazing they’ve given that output – especially seeing as their Yakuza games alone are always highly acclaimed. 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