Xbox’s gaming chief played a crucial role in bringing Team Ninja and PlatinumGames together. The much-anticipated Ninja Gaiden 4 is officially in development, with both studios joining forces, and is expected to launch later this year.

In a recent Game Watch interview, Team Ninja producer Fumihiko Yasuda revealed that the studio had long been considering a new Ninja Gaiden game but struggled to form a concrete plan. However, according to Yasuda, it was Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer who came up with the idea of Team Ninja working alongside PlatinumGames to revive the franchise.

“Everyone knows that the Ninja Gaiden series has been on hiatus for over a decade, but Team Ninja had been discussing a new entry for quite some time,” Yasuda explained (machine translation).

“We had trouble figuring out the right approach. Then, [Team Ninja’s parent company] Koei Tecmo president Hisashi Koinuma and PlatinumGames president Atsushi Inaba—who are from the same generation and have been longtime friends—had the opportunity to discuss the idea.”

“Following that discussion, Phil Spencer from Microsoft proposed that the three companies—PlatinumGames, Koei Tecmo, and Microsoft—team up to develop a new numbered entry in the Ninja Gaiden series, and that’s how the project began.”

“While we’ve created action games on our own, we knew that tackling a new Ninja Gaiden for the first time in over ten years was a major challenge. PlatinumGames, having developed phenomenal action titles like Bayonetta and NieR: Automata, seemed like the perfect partner. That’s how this collaboration came to life.”

Spencer’s Vision for a Ninja Gaiden Comeback

In a separate interview with journalist Destin Legarie, posted on YouTube, Phil Spencer shed light on how long Microsoft had been working on bringing Ninja Gaiden back.

“It took multiple visits to Japan,” Spencer shared. “I actually have a picture of myself in their office holding a Ryu [Hayabusa] statue—that was probably back in 2017 when we first started talking about bringing the franchise back.”

“Sarah Bond and I traveled to Japan multiple times a year, searching for the right studio to make it happen. Once we secured PlatinumGames, the project really started moving.”

“It was a long journey, but it was worth the wait. Ninja Gaiden 4 will launch in 2025, and for us, this is a pretty fast turnaround from announcement to release.”

Alongside the Ninja Gaiden 4 reveal last week, Xbox surprised fans with a remaster of Ninja Gaiden 2, now titled Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, which is available on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.

Source: Video Game Chronicles