2025 is onto an incredible start already, last night on the Xbox direct, Team Ninja izuna dropped a giant bombshell on all of us announcing both a new entry as well as a huge remastered overhaul to the 7th gen classic, Ninja Gaiden 2.
Keep in mind, a different Ninja Gaiden announcement preceded this in the form of Ragebound’s announcement in The Game Awards last year, a 2D spinoff of this iconic hack and slash series.
Ninja Gaiden 2 Black now on Game Pass, enhanced via Unreal Engine 5
While available on PS5 and Steam, 2 Black can be played right via the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription option, only for $19,99. A rather cheap alternative compared to getting it full price.
As of the time of writing this, I haven’t encountered any gigantic changes, the game is absolutely gorgeous and well-deserving of the UE5 treatment. There’s an easy mode added in the name of “Hero Time”, but it’s largely ignorable. Still, more people playing this classic can only be a net positive!
The gore has been added back, but this is still Sigma 2
While it’s great that we get a more enhanced version of this iconic 360 brawler, it is necessary to stress out this has the gore from OG2 added back, but retains everything else from Sigma 2, this means that your purchase will essentially hinge on how you feel about that version particularly and whether or not the additions are enough to persuade to make the purchase.
It doesn’t quite help that Sigma 2 is already on most modern hardware, while OG2 remains a 360 exclusive much like Black 1, only playable via Xbox is Backwards Compatibility program.
Ninja Gaiden 4 is announced
The Xbox Developer Direct, not only did we get more footage of Doom: The Dark Ages, a game that’s on its way to set the gaming world on fire, but we got the most unexpected announcement in the form of a brand new entry to the iconic character-action series.
It seems like there’s gonna be a new playable character on top of things. There’s a lot to look forward to here and the new remaster of the second game also gives us a taste of how the game will look visually!
Not into 3D? No problemo!
Even if you’re a Ninja Gaiden fan who never got into the 3D slashers, you still have your bases covered in the form of Ragebound, a new 2D entry in lord knows how long! Admittedly, this author is a little more nostalgic for the 2D games so this might be more up my alley too!
Are you excited about Ninja Gaiden’s climactic return? Izuna-drop your enemies in the comment section below!
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