Ever since the very first game in the series came out in 1988, Ninja Gaiden has always had a reputation for being on the difficult side. A thorough remake of the second game, Ninja Gaiden 2 Black has four difficulty settings with a bonus unlockable ‘Path of the Master Ninja: Punishing’, which is the game’s hardest setting. However, if you fancy an extra tricky challenge in Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, the developers over at Team Ninja suggest that you turn off the HUD.
This really puts your stealthy assassin skills to the test as not only can you no longer rely on the minimap to tell you where enemies are, you also can’t see your life bar nor Ki gauge. This means you can’t check how many Ninpo special abilities you have left. As Team Ninja says, this will really force you to rely solely on your very own ‘Ninja senses’ and pay careful attention to your surroundings.
If you’re up for the challenge, you can disable Ninja Gaiden 2 Black’s HUD by going to Options> Game Settings and toggling “Hide All” on under the HUD tab. Why not try this out while you wait for Ninja Gaiden 4 to release?
Turning off the HUD is also a good way to make most open world games more difficult as it forces you to remember where roads lead and how to get to important locations without glancing at the minimap constantly like it’s Google Maps.
Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is available now on Xbox Series X/S, PC (Steam) and PS5.
