The Ninja Gaiden series of action games are notoriously challenging, but ahead of the release of Ninja Gaiden 4 its directors have emphasised the importance of fairness.
Speaking to Automaton, directors Yuji Nakao (PlatinumGames) and Masakazu Hirayama (Team Ninja) discussed their approach to balancing the game’s difficulty.
“What really stands out throughout the Ninja Gaiden series,” said Nakao, “is how enemies are on equal footing with the player. They guard, and they even use throws.”
He continued: “We focused not only on making the action feel satisfying, but also on offering the cathartic release of overcoming disadvantageous odds, that was a core part of development.”
Hirayama added that fairness between the player and enemies is “crucial”, maintained by whether death feels like the player’s fault.
“If the player gets killed unreasonably,” he said, “it’s hard for them to reflect and think about what they could’ve done differently. But if they die because they made the wrong choice among several options, they’ll think, ‘Okay, let’s try this instead’. That kind of trial-and-error cycle requires a fair dynamic between offense and defense to work. That’s something we talk about a lot at Team Ninja, and it’s something we’ve always valued throughout the series.”
Ultimately, said Nakao, Ninja Gaiden 4 is “not a game you’ll be able to breeze through” and has “hardship…scattered throughout”. “That sense of catharsis you feel when you overcome those challenges is something I truly value,” he said.
Debate around difficulty in games has raged for years, particularly with regards to Soulslike action-RPGs. While action games like the Ninja Gaiden series are known for their difficulty, the Dark Souls games certainly popularised high levels of challenge, especially after the success of Elden Ring.
Most recently, the debate has resurfaced in the wake of Hollow Knight: Silksong, Team Cherry’s long-awaited sequel. For many players, it’s proven an incredibly steep challenge, though the studio’s Ari Gibson noted players “have ways to mitigate the difficulty via exploration, or learning, or even circumventing the challenge entirely, rather than getting stonewalled.”
After Ninja Gaiden 4’s initial reveal, Nakao spoke to Eurogamer about honouring the series’ legacy with its dual protagonists, as well as its difficulty.
“Ninja Gaiden is known for its intensity, especially that back and forth between offence and defence, and that dynamic ebb and flow of the combat,” said Nakao. “With Ninja Gaiden 4, we are making sure it inherits those qualities and that the high speed action and the gameplay feel that longtime players have come to expect from Ninja Gaiden games – including the challenge and the difficulty – are present in this new entry.”
Meanwhile, at the Tokyo Games Show last month, Xbox detailed the difficulty options in Ninja Gaiden 4 for newcomers and experts alike ahead of its release later this month across Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.
