Ninja Gaiden fans are feasting in 2025. In addition to January’s surprise-dropped Ninja Gaiden 2 Black and a proper, long-overdue sequel in Ninja Gaiden 4 coming this fall, there’s a new 2D platformer-action game from the developer behind the Blasphemous series. While The Game Kitchen’s 2D take on Ninja Gaiden could easily live in the shadow of its bigger-budget 3D siblings, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound looks to be an exciting and refreshing take on the franchise that deserves attention.
As with Ninja Gaiden 4, series regular Ryu Hayabusa is not the primary protagonist of Ragebound. Instead, players control Kenji Mozu, an apprentice of Ryu’s and a member of the Hayabusa village ninja clan. And in an intriguing twist that adds both story and gameplay depth, Ragebound will also give players control of another ninja, Kumori, a kunoichi from a rival clan.
Kenji and Kumori not only play independently at times, they can also play as a unified force of ninja power, solving puzzles and platforming challenges together. And I mean together quite literally; Kenji and Kumori fuse bodies at one point during the game and combine their skills to become a magically super-powerful ninja.
Image: The Game Kitchen/Dotemu, Koei Tecmo
Ryu is sitting out much of Ragebound because he’s off in America dealing with personal matters. In his absence, a rift between the demon world and our world opens, threatening Hayabusa village. With Ryu away, players will spend a lot of time with Kenji, who can perform dashes and slashes, and can bounce off of enemies and projectiles using a move called the Guillotine Boost.
Like the somersaulting Ryu Hayabusa of the 8-bit Ninja Gaiden games, Kenji can flip around with his sword out; but instead of just slicing through foes, his Guillotine Boost lets him ricochet off of enemies, launching him into the air. Kenji can also perform Hypercharged Attacks, powerful slashes that can be charged up for a limited time and can slice through heavy armor.
Many of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound’s platforming and combat challenges are based on these moves, plus dashes and wall climbs, but Kenji and Kumori have even more powerful abilities to call upon. Kumori in particular can interact with objects called Demon Altars that let her enter the demon world — an otherworldly version of Kenji’s reality. The two can work together to overcome challenges in both versions of Ragebound’s world, switching back and forth in clever, platforming-based puzzles.
Image: The Game Kitchen/Dotemu, Koei Tecmo
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound itself lives between two worlds: It has a retro, 2D pixelated style in the vein of classic 8-bit and 16-bit Ninja Gaiden games, but it also borrows from the Team Ninja-led 3D games. Developer The Game Kitchen said in a hands-off preview of Ragebound that it wants the game to be tough, but fair — unlike the cruel NES-era Ninja Gaiden releases. And for the game’s highly detailed pixel art, it wants to give players sprites that feel “as agile, responsive, and powerful as they do in 3D installments.”
I got to play a bit of Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound in February, and found the game both challenging and satisfying to play, with a generous learning curve that slowly introduces Kenji and Kumori’s powers. While the difficulty was generally forgiving, I never ranked above a “B” grade during my short stint with the game; I wasn’t avoiding hits nor chaining together combos in the graceful way shown in gameplay released by The Game Kitchen. But Ragebound was incredibly fun, and the platforming/combat puzzles that require using Kenji and Kumori’s respective skill sets seem very well designed. I’m really looking forward to seeing some of the more complex, later-game play — and admittedly more excited about Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound than Ninja Gaiden 4 at this stage. No offense to the developers at PlatinumGames, but The Game Kitchen is doing some clever, compelling things with 2D ninja action in Ragebound.
Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound will be released this summer on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.