Of all the reveals at the 2025 Xbox Developer Direct, the revival of Ninja Gaiden has to be one of the biggest. The classic action franchise is receiving multiple new games, including Ninja Gaiden 4 and Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, the latter of which shadow dropped right after the event. Such a 180 degree turn for the series was certainly a surprise, since outside of the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection compilation, the last time we received a proper entry in this franchise was Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge all the way back in 2012. But it also heralds what could be a pivotal turning point for games as a medium: the return of old school 3D action games after years of the genre being dominated by Soulslike games.
Where once games like Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry and the original God of War series ran the action scene, that style of game has been all but supplanted by the likes of FromSoftware entries such as Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. We don’t dislike that type of game, to be clear, but there should be room in the AAA marketplace for both, and the return of Ninja Gaiden could be the balancing of the scales the action genre desperately needs.
The Dragon Lineage
The Ninja Gaiden series was once widely considered the pinnacle of action games. The 2004 relaunch on the original Xbox was a far cry from the 2D action platformers that popularized the series on the NES, but the new take on Ryu Hayabusa’s adventures became instantly iconic for its buttery smooth gameplay, remarkably fluid animation and extreme difficulty. Sure, there were plenty of other hack and slash action games on the market, and some were even known for being hard like Devil May Cry. But Ninja Gaiden stood apart from the pack, practically daring players to give up before they even finished the first level. Many players have told stories about being beaten into submission by Murai, a master of nunchaku and the first boss of the game.
But despite the challenge, anyone who’s spent a decent amount of time with the game will tell you that aside from some camera woes that lead to being attacked by off-screen enemies from time to time, the difficulty of Ninja Gaiden is mostly fair, all things considered. Deaths are common but come from player mistakes and not being fully in-tune with the rhythm of combat, the delicate dance of movement, defense and counter-attacks that expert players use to decimate their opponents. From the iconic Izuna Drop, the overwhelming power of Ultimate Techniques, and a litany of combos to master for all the various weapons, there are more than enough tools at the player’s disposal to overcome every challenge the game throws at you.
If all of that rhetoric sounds familiar, it’s because Ninja Gaiden, ironically enough, was a progenitor to the Soulslike phenomenon and the fan community that spawned around it. Players loving Ninja Gaiden for its brutal challenge and conquering the hardest difficulty settings influenced the mindset that Soulslike fans have, of seeking the satisfaction of finally besting what initially felt like insurmountable odds. Few action games require such mastery of their mechanics in order to succeed as Ninja Gaiden does, and FromSoftware and the games it influenced took that idea and turned it into an entire subgenre. Yet it may have done too good of a job, because the Soulslike model has consumed action games over the past decade, much to their detriment.
Follow the Leader
It’s not a coincidence that Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, the PS3 port of Ninja Gaiden II that is widely considered an inferior version and the start of the series’ downfall, came out the same year as Demon’s Souls. Released in 2009, the PS3 action RPG received strong reviews and set the stage for the release of Dark Souls in 2011, which was a landmark title that has been frequently called one of the greatest video games ever made, including by IGN. Around the same time that the disastrous Ninja Gaiden 3 and its somewhat better rerelease Razor’s Edge were cratering the Hayabusa saga, Dark Souls was carving out a sizable space in the action market. The game received two direct sequels and led to FromSoftware making further refinements to the same gameplay style in Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring.
The massive popularity of FromSoftware’s mechanics spilled into other franchises, such as Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and its sequel Jedi: Survivor, Team Ninja’s Nioh, and Game Science’s Black Myth: Wukong. Now, most of the games we just listed are beloved by players and critics alike. There’s nothing wrong with the Soulslike model in a vacuum. But this style of game has suffocated the AAA action space to the point of classic style 3D action games being few and far between. Ninja Gaiden is only just coming back after over a decade in the cooler. The last proper Devil May Cry entry, DMC5, was released in 2019. God of War was revived in 2018 but lost a lot of its mechanical personality in the process, being stripped of its linear, fast-paced hack and slash gameplay in favor of a more industry standard semi-open world with slower, more methodical combat. The new God of War games aren’t an exact copy of the Soulslike style, but they certainly feel more akin to it.
Said style has many hallmarks that gamers can instantly recognize: Difficult combat built around timing dodges and parries, stamina management, a need to create a build for your character with customizable equipment, large open-ended level design, and save points healing the player character while also respawning non-boss enemies in the environment. FromSoftware using this model for its games makes sense because they invented it, but so many other developers copying their homework means gamers are now overdosed on this style. Now that Ninja Gaiden is back in the mainstream with the release of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, the strengths that are specific to character action games have a new chance to shine.
The Master Ninja Returns
Playing Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is the breath of fresh air that the action genre has needed for quite some time. The lightning fast combat, wide variety of weapons, and the return of the blood and gore from the original release that the Sigma iteration dropped makes this the best version of Ninja Gaiden 2 you can play on modern hardware, and the perfect place for franchise newcomers to see what all the fuss is about. Some franchise veterans might decry the difficulty adjustments and enemy counts, but it’s important to remember that the original Ninja Gaiden II barely held together from a technical perspective and sometimes fell into cheap traps due to its unbalanced design. Of all the game’s iterations, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black works best as a complete package, maintaining a high level of difficulty and reinstating the gore absent from Sigma 2 while keeping much of the extra content that version added, such as the bonus characters and levels (although they thankfully dropped the statue boss fights no one liked).
This new remaster is also a stark reminder of what was lost when games of its kind stopped being a pillar of the action space. It can be hard to remember now, but games inspired by Ninja Gaiden and God of War were all over the place in the late 2000s and early 2010s, such as PlatinumGames’ Bayonetta, Visceral Games’ Dante’s Inferno, Vigil Games’ Darksiders, and even FromSoftware’s attempt to copy Ninja Gaiden in the long-forgotten Ninja Blade. Frenetic, combo-based battles against dozens of foes and an array of giant bosses presented in a curated, linear format is such a tried and true formula that it’s shocking how much the template evaporated as the Soulslike model took prominence. Now, games that use similar mechanics as Ninja Gaiden aren’t completely gone (Hi-Fi Rush’s rhythm-based take on the same gameplay loop was released in 2023), but Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is one of the most prominent examples of the form released by a major developer in years pretty much by default.
More than anything, replaying Ninja Gaiden 2 in its latest incarnation highlights why the experience of games like it can’t be replicated elsewhere. There’s a purity to action games like Ninja Gaiden where there are no real “cheats” to get ahead; no builds to copy off of a guide, no experience points to outlevel the enemies, no stamina bar to limit your abilities. It’s just you and the game, and you do the best with the small handful of tools you’re given. You either master the combat put in front of you or you find yourself staring at a Game Over screen over and over again. So while we don’t anticipate Soulslike games losing their hold on the gaming populace anytime soon, hopefully the return of Ninja Gaiden starts a new golden age for action games. Surely there’s enough audience to go around for both.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Bluesky.
