In contrast to the Ninja Gaiden series’ core gameplay, which has you hacking and slashing several mob enemies some of its boss battles feel like walls that need to be chipped away at to progress forward. According to Ninja Gaiden 4 producer Fumihiko Yasuda, the upcoming sequel will feature more interesting boss battles that learn from the series’ shortcomings.
In an interview with Famitsu, Yasuda remarked how Ninja Gaiden 4 feels very similar to Ninja Gaiden 2. This is because Platinum Games’ Yuji Nakao, who serves as director and producer on Ninja Gaiden 4, is a big fan of the 2008 hack-and-slash game.
However, while previous mainline Ninja Gaiden titles excelled at their moment-to-moment gameplay, boss battles weren’t as popular with players. Yasuda admits that this was due to Team Ninja’s past shortcomings, but he also gets the impression that fans enjoy fighting minor enemies more than bosses.
With these insights, Team Ninja asked Platinum Games to increase the frequency of Ninja Gaiden 4’s minor enemy encounters midway through development. Yasuda says that while he thinks Platinum Games wouldn’t be happy about the request, given that the game was already pretty close to completion, increasing the hordes of enemies that the player gets to fight during on-rail sequences made the game feel more like a part of the series.
As for the boss battles, Yasuda claims that they will be “much more fun than in the previous games”, citing that they were “very well-made from the start.” According to him, the team thoroughly discussed each boss encounter, going so far as to have debates over the difficulty. Ultimately, they settled on something that they think is both fun and challenging for all players.
Ninja Gaiden 4 is set to release on October 21 for PC (Windows), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
