The mystery game in the Xbox Developer Direct was not quite such a mystery after all, as it’s revealed to be Ninja Gaiden 4 for Xbox and PS5. Despite Microsoft making a promise of a surprise new game reveal, during its Developer Direct on Thursday evening, the rumours quickly narrowed down what it was to either an Ecco The Dolphin reboot or a new Ninja Gaiden.
![[Ninja Gaiden 4 screenshot]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_237088101-1c49.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s the latter which turned out to be right, although the annoucement that Ninja Gaiden 4 will be a collaboration between series creator Team Ninja and Bayonetta and NieR:Automata developer PlatinumGames was a bit of a shock.
The game will be published by Xbox Game Studios, not Team Ninja and franchise owner Koei Tecmo, but it will be released on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC (and, we’re willing to bet, Nintendo Switch 2) this autumn. Although the third person action is very much within Platinum’s area of expertise they had previously vowed to stop working on games where they don’t own the IP. Considering the trouble the developer seems to be in at the moment, with no new games in some time and a number of high profile staff exits, it’s not hard to imagine why they backtracked on that.
The brain drain has left Platinum a little short on big name directors though and Ninja Gaiden 4 producer and director Yuji Nakao has never directed a game of this size before, with his most significant credit so far being one of four producers on Bayonetta 3.
