Summary
- During the Xbox Developer Direct, Team Ninja dropped two bombshells: Ninja Gaiden 4 is out this year, and a Ninja Gaiden 2 remake is out right now.
- This two-pronged tactic was a genius way to not only stir up excitement among old fans, but immediately cultivate a new audience ahead of the next game.
- Ninja Gaiden is finally back, and with it being available for Game Pass users right now at no extra cost, it's a real event.
There hasn’t been a new 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ninja Gaiden🅘 game in 13 years, with the series living off re-releases and remasters for over a decade now. Bringing it back for a new audience with a direct sequel after such a lengthy hiatus was a♔lways going to be a difficult task, but Team Ninja struck gold and found the perfect way.
Or I guess, struck 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game Pass Core.
During last night’s Xbox Developer Direct, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the long-awaited Ninja Gaiden 4 ღwas announced in a thrilling, action-packe꧙d breakdown that encapsulated what makes this series so special (a whole lotta guts and gore). But at the very endꩵ, it announced a surprise second reveal — Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, a ground-up remake of the original game in Unreal Engine 5.
Not only that, it shadowdropped on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and even Game Pass. Team Ninja offered an entire remake of one of its most beloved games during an X🅠box stream on a service that most of its viewers will already be subscribed to, meaning it costs them absolutely nothing. If there was ever a way to revive a legacy IP, this was it.
Hook, Line, And Ninja
The showcase opened with Ninja Gaiden 4, showing us the lavish ruins of a dystopian, futuristic Tokyo being traversed by an agile but brutal ninja. We saw them slice apart foes in action bouts that already look like the perfect blend of old-school hack ‘n’ slash and newer Soulslike motifs, lending to Team Ninja’s recent foray into the genre with Nioh and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. It’s a big-budget, over-the-top actio🍸n game from a studio that regularly rivals FromSoftware at its own game — regardless of whether you’re a Gaiden fan, it was an exciting opener.
But it still needed more to get people on board, peopleꦜ beyond the diehard fans w𝄹ho have been clutching at straws since Ninja Gaiden 3.
Ninja Gaiden 4 was the hook. 𓃲It got people interested, whether they’re a fan or not. Then came the uppercut that Team Ninja was shadowdropping an entire remake of the second game, starring Ryu Hayabusa who featured so heavily in that opening trailer, and everyone had a reason to jump aboard the Ninja Gaiden train. As🍸 the showcase came to a close, many will have undoubtedly rushed to get Ninja Gaiden 2 Black installed.
Studio head Fumihiko Yasuda himself said that they wanted to “give players something to enjoy as they wait”, and so this remake was cleverly designed to a) tie players over until Ninja Gaiden 4, b) introduce newcomers to the s൩eries with a more up-to-date game that’ll flow seamlessly into the newer entry, and c) keep Ninja Gaiden in the spotlight for longer. Shadowdropping is often incredibly risky and tends to hurt sales (as does Game Pass) since you miss out on that major marketing push, but doing so with an entire, big-budget remake made a huge splash, one that will inevitably leave a mark.
It doesn’t need to sell well or be a breakout hit, it just needs to put Ninja Gaiden back on the map. Yesterday’s reveal did the heavy lifting, and the idea that ‘you can play it right now — for free’ goes far beyond what a standard remake might accomplish. Dropping Ninja Gaiden 2 Black on Game Pass is the perfect appetiser, and so many new fans will be joining the old guard in looking forward to the sequel when it arrives late♋r this year.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Ninja Gaiden 2 Black
- Top Critic Avg: 81/100 Critics Rec: 94%
- Released
- January 23, 2025
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Intense Violence, Blo💧od and Gore, Suggestive Themes, Partial Nudity, Strong L🅠anguage
- Developer(s)
- Koei Tecmo Games Co., Ltd. ও
- Publisher(s)
- 🌜 Koei Tecmo🎶 Games Co., Ltd.
- Number of Players
- 1
- PC Release Date
- January 23, 2025
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