On June 7th, as previously announced, Assassin’s Creed Origins arrives for cloud, consoles and PC. This may coincide with the release of the 60 FPS patch for Xbox Series X/S and PS5 – we’ll need to wait and see. Space combat title Chorus is out on the same day for the same platforms, providing a fast-paced, narrative-focused arcade shooting experience.

Brutal puzzler Disc Room and rogue-like co-op management title Spacelines from the Far Out also releases on June 7th. Both are coming to PC and consoles but Disc Room is also playable via the cloud. Check out the list of titles that will be leaving Game Pass on June 15th below. Play them now while you have the chance.

• Darkest Dungeon (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Dungeons and Dragons: Dark Alliance (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Greedfall (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Limbo (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Worms Rumble (Cloud, Console, and PC)

Other sales figures include Winning Post 9 2021 with 80,000 units sold in Japan; Uncharted Waters 5 HD Remaster with 70,000 units sold in Asia; and Angelique Kuruminalize with 30,000 units sold in Asia. Overall, revenue is up by 80.4 percent year on year with download sales being up by 80.7 percent, followed by a 55.8 percent increase for mobile downloads and 45 percent increase for packaged sales.

Ninja Gaiden Master Collection is currently available for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. Despite a troubled launch on PC, recent updates have helped to improve the experience. Nioh 2 released last year for PS4 with the Complete Edition coming to PC and PS5 in February 2021.

Koei Tecmo has been addressing the various issues, adding 1440p resolution support to the launch options. Its latest update 1.0.0.2 goes even further, adding options like Display Mode, Resolution and VSync to the Options menu. You can even select Triple Buffering, Anti-Aliasing, Depth of Field and Display Shadows. None of this is groundbreaking for PC games by any stretch and should give an idea as to how bare-bones this PC port was at launch.

Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection is available now for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. Though essentially a compilation of the 3D Ninja Gaiden titles, it actually contains updated versions of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 1 and 2 along with Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. For more details on the collection, check out our official review here.

Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection collects Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge into one package with all of their DLC. Some features like online multiplayer are missing while Xbox Series X, PS5 and PC players can take advantage of 4K/60 FPS gameplay. Read our review here to see how the remastered collection fares.

PC players might want to hold off on picking it up though. Along with no options for frame rates higher than 60 FPS, the PC version requires manually changing the resolution from the game’s properties in Steam Library (and only supports 720p, 1080p and 4K resolutions). Time will tell if any fixes or major improvements will be made to the port so stay tuned.

Needless to say, I’m a fan of the series, and I’ve been looking forward to the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection for a while now. This seems like a home run, right? Take two beloved games and Ninja Gaiden 3 and bundle them together for the current platforms. The collection combines Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, and as far as I can tell, the games run very well. The core issue, really, is the games that Team Ninja has chosen to port.

"Ninja Gaiden is the best kind of action game: it gives you tools for dealing with everything that it throws at you, and then it throws everything at you. When you die, you’ll know why, and it’ll always be your fault. So, let me be clear: Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a great game."

We’ll start at the beginning: Ninja Gaiden Sigma is the fourth revision of the original Ninja Gaiden, following the Hurricane Pack and Ninja Gaiden Black. Sigma is essentially a remake of Black, adding improved graphics, an additional weapon in the Dragon Claw and Tiger Fang dual katanas, reduced enemy difficulty, a couple of new bosses, slightly reworked levels with sections that were cut or remade for Sigma, and three levels in which you play Rachel. There’s also a mission mode to play around in. In exchange, you lose two costumes from Black, a piece of equipment, and playable versions of the Ninja Gaiden NES games.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma is an excellent game, largely because it’s built on the backs of the three excellent versions of Ninja Gaiden that came before it. From the level design to the enemies, who are absolutely relentless, Ninja Gaiden demands precision. The game mixes up puzzles, platforming, and combat extremely well, and while you’ll always be challenged, you’ll likely never be bored. This is also true of the game’s bosses, who are consistently challenging without feeling unfair.

Ninja Gaiden is the best kind of action game: it gives you tools for dealing with everything that it throws at you, and then it throws everything at you. When you die, you’ll know why, and it’ll always be your fault. So, let me be clear: Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a great game. But it’s still a flawed one. The major problem here is really that it isn’t Ninja Gaiden Black. In addition to lacking some of Black’s content, the stuff Sigma adds just isn’t very good. The biggest issue here is the Rachel missions.

"Rachel’s levels also take place in the same environments Ryu’s do, which means you’ll often backtrack through the same places multiple times as both Ryu and Rachel. In addition to getting old, Rachel’s missions kill the game’s pacing, coming just when you’d like to keep going as Ryu."

Rachel isn’t a bad character, though her design, which combines skimpy black leather, high heels, and some of the funniest jiggle physics you’ve ever seen, is pretty ridiculous. No, the real issue is Rachel’s kit. By the time you begin playing as her, Ryu will already have access to 5 weapons. Rachel, by comparison, has her war hammer, and that’s it. Worse still, you can’t upgrade it, so your moveset is pretty much locked in from the moment you get her, and it’s extremely limited compared to the options Ryu has to work with.

The game makes up for this by making her incredibly strong, but she’s just not as much fun to use as Ryu is. Rachel’s levels also take place in the same environments Ryu’s do, which means you’ll often backtrack through the same places multiple times as both Ryu and Rachel. In addition to getting old, Rachel’s missions kill the game’s pacing, coming just when you’d like to keep going as Ryu. I hesitate to say Rachel’s missions are bad, but they are worse than Ryu’s and I do think they would be better if they were separate from the main game or at least skippable.

The other major problem Ninja Gaiden Sigma has is that it loads in odd places. Sometimes this happens when you’re accessing a save statue, entering combat, or just entering a new area. I once entered a new area, realized I’d missed something, turned around, and immediately got a loading notification. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Most of the time, it’s fine, but when it happens in combat scenarios, it often results in the player getting hit when they shouldn’t. These restrictions made sense when Ninja Gaiden Sigma was released on the PS3 in 2007, but there’s absolutely no reason it should be doing this on consoles that are several times more powerful nearly 15 years later. Sigma is still a very good game overall; it’s just not Ninja Gaiden Black.

"The biggest mechanical change from the original Ninja Gaiden is dismemberment, which allows you to remove an enemy’s limbs and then execute them. Enemies who have had their limbs chopped off become more dangerous, however, giving the system a nice element of risk and reward."

That brings us to Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, which is just a lesser game. Part of this is because Ninja Gaiden 2 just isn’t as good as the original. The game’s development was notably trouble and famously resulted in the departure of series creator Tomonobou Itagaki. As a result, parts of Ninja Gaiden 2 feel unfinished, especially during some of the later levels, and the game is substantially more linear than the original. The upside is that the enemy count has been greatly enhanced.

Ninja Gaiden 2 was built around the Xbox 360’s architecture, which meant it ran poorly on the PS3. To compensate, Sigma 2 makes some substantial changes to the original Ninja Gaiden 2, reworking it to the extent that it’s not really the same game anymore. It reduces the enemy count substantially, largely because the PS3 couldn’t handle the huge amount of enemies in the original game, and significantly tones down the gore. In addition, Sigma 2 reworks some of the game’s levels, adds and removes some bosses, removes the need to find keys to open doors, removes certain weapons and adds others, removes several DLC costumes, and adds levels for Rachel, Ayane, and Momiji. Like the original Ninja Gaiden Sigma, there’s also a mission mode.

The biggest mechanical change from the original Ninja Gaiden is dismemberment, which allows you to remove an enemy’s limbs and then execute them. Enemies who have had their limbs chopped off become more dangerous, however, giving the system a nice element of risk and reward.

"For all its flaws, Sigma 2 is still a good game. It has an excellent combat system, it feels great to play, and while the game never achieves the highs that the original game does, it also irons out its lows, making for a more even playing experience."

The real issue here is that much of what Sigma 2 added from the original game isn’t very good. Rachel, Ayane, and Momiji just aren’t very interesting to play compared to Ryu, several of the new bosses are more interesting as spectacles than actual fights, and the removal of the games puzzle elements means it’s a more rote experience because there’s nothing to break up the combat.

The decision to reduce the enemy count also substantially harm’s the game’s combat system, which was designed for larger groups of enemies. Sigma 2 attempts to compensate by upping enemy health. That helps, but it also results in combat that never achieves the balance it should. Like the original Sigma, Sigma 2 will also load at random times.

And yet, for all its flaws, Sigma 2 is still a good game. It has an excellent combat system, it feels great to play, and while the game never achieves the highs that the original game does, it also irons out its lows, making for a more even playing experience. It’s still a good game, and while it’s not nearly as good as either Ninja Gaiden Sigma or the original version of Ninja Gaiden 2, it is still very much worth playing.

"Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge is Team Ninja’s attempt to fix the game without totally reworking it, but it’s still not a very good game, especially compared to its predecessors."

Then there’s Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. The original Ninja Gaiden 3 was not met with a positive critical reception, and often didn’t feel like a Ninja Gaiden game at all, slowing things down, limiting Ryu to a single weapon, and the like. Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge is Team Ninja’s attempt to fix the game without totally reworking it, but it’s still not a very good game, especially compared to its predecessors. Razor’s Edge maintains the focus on dismemberment found in Ninja Gaiden 2, and its enemy count is much closer to the original Ninja Gaiden 2 than the Sigma games. And, of course, the combat, which is also largely based around dismembering and executing enemies, generally feels pretty good.

The problem is everything around that combat. There are no health items or essence in Ninja Gaiden 3. Ninpo, which is a resource you use in previous games, is now a meter you fill by killing enemies and is the only way to heal yourself outside of a meditation ability that leaves you so helpless it might as well be useless. This wouldn’t be an issue if you reverted to full health after each fight, but you don’t. Instead, each time you’re hit, your maximum health decreases to a minimum. That minimum stays in place until you reach the next save point, meaning you can start fights with exceptionally low maximum health and basically no way to heal yourself.

The other problem is the game’s encounters. Ninja Gaiden 3’s idea of difficulty is to just throw enemies at you. This would be fine, but the game also supplements these enemies with rocket launcher enemies in nearly every encounter, almost all of whom are in places that can only be reached by Ryu’s bow. Standing still long enough to aim in Ninja Gaiden 3 will get you killed, so your only option is to jump and hope Ryu’s auto-targeting will lock onto them. Otherwise, you just run around dodging rockets until you can take them out and actually play the game.

"It’s neither fun nor interesting, and that could be said for much of Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, especially when the other games in this collection are readily available."

This would be fine in some encounters, but it’s basically every encounter in the game. Combine this with the game’s exceptionally poor job of teaching you its mechanics (it doesn’t really explain the game’s Steel on Bone system, which allows you to counter strong enemy attacks, properly until a couple levels in) and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge is more frustrating than satisfying. I’m not against difficulty in video games, especially Ninja Gaiden, but the encounter design is so rote that I was surprised when enemies with rocket launchers didn’t show up in one level. About 15 seconds later, of course, they did.

It’s neither fun nor interesting, and that could be said for much of Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, especially when the other games in this collection are readily available. Combine this with the general lack of options compared to the earlier games, the health system that seems only to exist to punish you, the generally boring Ayane levels, and the mechanical downgrade Razor’s Edge represent, and there’s genuinely no reason to play it unless you’re a completionist. The other games are that much better, and while it is better than the original Ninja Gaiden 3, it often doesn’t feel like a Ninja Gaiden game at all.

So the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection offers one exceptional game in Ninja Gaiden Sigma, a very good one in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, which most players should avoid at all costs. It’s not a bad deal for $40, and this is a nice port if an exceptionally barebones one that doesn’t do much to make the games that much better aside from a resolution bump and a better framerate.

"It’s not exceptional, it’s not the best versions of these games, and it’s not what these games deserved. But it is still a collection that includes two of the best action games ever made. And that alone is worth the price of admission."

It’s also disappointing that this collection is generally made up of the worst versions of the Ninja Gaiden games. This is allegedly because Team Ninja no longer has the code for Ninja Gaiden Black or Ninja Gaiden 2, but they could have reverse-engineered the code for those games had they wanted to. They didn’t. Instead, they got the Sigma games and Razor’s Edge working on modern hardware, made them look and run better, and called it a day. Compared to something like the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, this collection is about as barebones as it gets. What saves it is that these are still good games. Well, except for Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, anyway.

So, should you buy it? That depends. If you have access to an Xbox, you’re probably better off buying Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 and calling it a day. But if you’re already a fan of the Sigma games, have never played the series before, or are a PC player who is just getting access to Ninja Gaiden for the first time, this collection is worth your money. It’s not exceptional, it’s not the best versions of these games, and it’s not what these games deserved. But it is still a collection that includes two of the best action games ever made and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. And that alone is worth the price of admission.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

According to the game’s updated Steam listing however, it gets even worse. Only 720p, 1080p and 4K resolutions are supported on PC. To set the output resolution, one has to open the game’s properties in their Steam Library and enter  “720p”, “1080p”, or “4k” in the “Launch Options” field. There doesn’t seem to be a way to do this in-game.

Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja haven’t revealed whether such an option is on the cards, sadly. PC port issues aren’t exactly new for the studios – Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition launched with a myriad of problems, from shoddy performance to missing on-screen keyboard and mouse input icons. Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection releases on Xbox One, PC, PS4 and Nintendo Switch tomorrow so we’ll see how the performance fares on consoles.

Includes Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge

The three core titles in the trilogy are here…sort of. The Master Collection includes the Sigma versions of Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2 along with Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, which itself is an enhanced version of the third game. While this may not seem like a huge deal, Ninja Gaiden Sigma changes levels, bosses, puzzles and so on along with adding more save points and vendors. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, on the other hand, reduces the number of enemies (and raises the health of those remaining) and removes Karma Scoring in the Story Mode and Tests of Valor. It also heavily tones down the violence. As for Razor’s Edge, it actually looked to improve on several issues with its predecessor, adding new weapons, the Karma Counter and an upgrade menu among other things.

Long story short, the Master Collection doesn’t offer the original versions of the classics, which are often cited as being the rest. The reason, as per Team Ninja’s Fumihiko Yasuda to Famitsu, is that the original code for Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 couldn’t be salvaged.

Stories and Settings

The story in each title remains more or less the same as their base versions. Ninja Gaiden Sigma sees Ryu Hayabusa seeking revenge for the raid on his village by Doku, who also stole the Dark Dragon Blade. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 has Ryu working with Sonia, a CIA agent, in order to stop Elizebet, the queen of the Greater Fiends, after Hayabusa Village’s Demon Statue is stolen.

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge takes a slightly different approach. Ryu works with the Japanese Self-Defense Force to battle a terrorist group but is subsequently cursed by their leader, the Regent of the Mask. With the Dragon Sword now part of his arm and slowly killing him, Ryu must stop the Regent and his plans to annihilate the world.

Combat

Ninja Gaiden at its core is a difficult, fast-paced hack and slash series of games. Unlike other similar titles at the time, you couldn’t cancel out of attacks. However, Ryu had a number of different techniques and weapons at his disposal, from wall-running to flying slashes and spinning piledrivers. Along with swords, he could utilize staves, heavy weapons, shuriken, arrows, Ninpo and Ultimate Techniques for annihilating foes. Blocking and evading are key but so is moving and reacting fast. Of course, it’s also worth noting that in terms of exploration and puzzle-solving, Ninja Gaiden Sigma is a fairly big step back from the original and Ninja Gaiden Black.

Ninja Gaiden 2 introduced limb severing, which could weaken but not outright kill some foes – Obliteration Techniques were thus necessary to finish them off. Several new weapons have been added along with lasting damage which provides some manner of healing after each battle. Ultimate Techniques also return and are charged by absorbing essence. Along with toning down the gore, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 tweaks the controls slightly, adjusts some weapons and adds new ones. As noted before, enemies are fewer but have more health to compensate.

Ninja Gaiden 3 made several controversial changes to the series’ formula. Ryu now only has one Ninpo spell in single-player; items have been mostly removed; and his Ultimate Techniques have been replaced by the Grip of Murder which is charged by slaying enemies. He can also throw kunai onto and climb up certain walls. Razor’s Edge speeds up this mechanic while also adding new weapons, more aggressive foes; limb severing and Obliteration Techniques; less quick time events; and much more. In short, it’s more like the previous games (which is a good thing).

Hero Mode

Added in Ninja Gaiden 3 and brought over to the first two games with Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus and Sigma 2 Plus, Hero Mode makes the game easier. When enabled in the first game, it triggers when a player’s health falls low with automatically guarding and evasion active. Unlimited Ninpo is also available, allowing the player to turn the tides. In the second game and third games, it’s more about blocking and evading automatically, making the games easier to get through.

Multiple Playable Characters

Each of the Ninja Gaiden titles included in the Master Collection features additional playable characters. Ninja Gaiden Sigma had Rachel with three new chapters and new bosses to tackle. Rachel also had her own chapter in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 while Ayane and Momiji were added, each with their own unique chapters. All three guest characters returned in Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge with Kasumi also added to the mix. Each could be played in Chapter Challenge and Ninja Trials while Ayane received her own two story chapters.

Ninja Race and Tag Missions in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2

Introduced in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus, Ninja Race is about clearing a map as quickly as possible. Attacking enemies and creating a “chain” will increase one’s attack, allowing for faster clear, while items could also increase speed and grant additional time. Tag Missions are also available, letting you choose from Ryu and one of three other characters – Ayane, Rachel or Momoji – to complete a mission with the ability to switch between them. Aside from Ryu, all three guest characters can also be used in Ninja Race.

Ninja Trials and Tests of Valor in Ninja Gaiden 3

Ninja Trials in Ninja Gaiden 3 offer challenges to beat a set number of enemies and are grouped into different difficulties, Acolyte being the easiest and Ultimate Ninja being the toughest. Earning Karma will unlock subsequent trials for play. Then there are Tests of Valor where players must locate Crystal Skulls hidden in each chapter that lead to tough challenges with powerful foes.

Includes All DLC

The Master Collection includes all of the DLC released for each title, which ranges from new costumes for Ryu, Ayane, Rachel, Kasumi and Momiji to new hair-styles. You’ll also experience new battle scenarios, surviving against as many enemies as possible, in Ninja Gaiden Sigma’s Speed Master, Weapons Master and Rachel Master DLC.

No Online Multiplayer

Not everything has made the jump over though. Turbo Mode from Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus isn’t here and players can’t engage in online play for Tag Missions in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 or for Ninja Trials and Clan Battles in Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge. In an interview with GamingBolt, Team Ninja’s Fumihiko Yasuda said that implementing the exact same multiplayer systems would “require a great deal of time and money” along with placing “limitations on the platforms we could release it on. And given that dilemma we decided to increase the number of platforms we would release the collection on in order to reach as many players as possible rather than pursue the multiplayer feature.”

Runs at 4K/60 FPS on PS4 Pro, PS5, Xbox One X, Xbox Series X/S and PC

Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection will run in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second on PS4 Pro, Xbox One X, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. PC performance ultimately depends on one’s hardware. Switch players will have to be satisfied with 720p resolution on both docked and undocked modes at 60 FPS. While there may be fluctuations during gameplay, the focus is on a stable frame rate.

No PS5, Xbox Series X/S Enhancements

Unfortunately, Xbox Series X/S and PS5 players won’t be seeing any enhancements – the Master Collection is playable through backwards compatibility and won’t have any specific features for any of those consoles. Yasuda confirmed this while speaking to GamingBolt and even dashed hopes for a proper current-gen version. Doing so “would actually require a complete remake. We did consider it, but we also wanted to get the games into the hands of players sooner than later. Also, if we had the time and resources for a remake we felt it would be a better served opportunity to create a new game, so that’s why we decided to go with this collection at this time.”

No 120 FPS or Keyboard/Mouse Support on PC

PC players should also note that there won’t be any options for 120 FPS or ultrawide monitor support. Yasuda confirmed to PC Gamer that the Master Collection will run at 1080p/60 FPS for standard systems and 4K/60 FPS with the appropriate hardware and display. It also can’t be played with a keyboard and mouse – you need a controller for the PC version.

Deluxe Edition Details

In terms of Deluxe Edition content, there isn’t much beyond the ordinary. Along with the Master Collection, purchasers receive a digital art book and soundtrack with still images and music from across the series. On the flip side, it’s $44.99 compared to the Standard Edition’s $39.99 so why not?

Total Playtime

Playtime for games like Ninja Gaiden can be difficult to gauge. HowLongToBeat.com notes that Ninja Gaiden Sigma 1 and 2 will require 14 hours and 12 hours to complete respectively if you’re just focusing on the story. Meanwhile, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge only requires 7 hours. A completionist run for all titles would amount to about 120 hours of gameplay in total. However, playing on the standard difficulty for the Sigma titles can drive that up quite a bit (depending on one’s skill, of course). Even attempting to complete the toughest challenges in Razor’s Edge should keep you busy for a while. Either way, if you can get into its gameplay, then the Master Collection has plenty to offer.

Tecmo-Koei and Team Ninja released a new trailer for the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection today. Appropriately titled “Action,” the trailer shows off the many techniques, weapons, and ninpo skills Ryu Hayabusa can use to cut a bloody swath through his enemies. As you’d expect from Ninja Gaiden, the action looks fast, smooth, and utterly brutal.

The collection remasters Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, and Ninja Gaiden: Razor’s Edge in 4K and at 60 FPS and includes most of the previously released digital content. While missing DLC is always a concern when companies tout their remasters as the definitive versions of the games they contain, Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection has a different problem. It collects the Sigma versions of the first two titles, not Ninja Gaiden Black or Ninja Gaiden 2, making the collection incomplete at best and worse versions of the aforementioned games at worst.

While Ninja Gaiden Black is widely considered the definitive version of the original game and one of the best action games ever made, the original Sigma isn’t a bad title. It just isn’t Ninja Gaiden Black. The larger problem comes from Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, which toned down Ninja Gaiden 2‘s much larger enemy count, replaced the game’s blood with purple mist, changes certain abilities, and even removes entire sections of levels and boss battles. Sigma 2 does run better because of the removal of enemies in certain sections and add additional playable characters with their own levels, but reception to these additions were mixed at best, and the Ninja Gaiden community generally regards Ninja Gaiden 2 as the superior release. It’s not a stretch to say that Ninja Gaiden 2 and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 often feel like completely different games.

It’s unfortunate that the Master Collection won’t feature Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 (Team Ninja claims the original games weren’t salvageable, though there are examples of other studios reverse engineering games thought lost with time and effort), but what’s here does look good. If nothing else, it will give players who have never played the original releases a chance to experience the series. Fortunately, those who want to play Ninja Gaiden Black and Ninja Gaiden 2 still have options. Both games are backwards compatible on Xbox One X and Xbox Series X, and have received significant technical upgrades.

For everyone else, Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection releases on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on June 10th. You can check out the “Action” Trailer below, courtesy of Tecmo-Koei.

Later this year, we will see the return of the action series version of Ninja Gaiden with the Master Collection. The collection will see three games, each a re-release of some kind of previous games in the legendary franchise (though, unfortunately, we will not see an option for the original releases). The games themselves stand alone, however, and today we got a look at all the ninja you can play through the collection.

As mentioned, all three games were re-releases of previous titles, and all added and/or altered content from those releases. One of the big things was the addition of multiple characters outside the main protagonist of Ryu Hayabasa. The trailer highlights him, as well as Ayane, Momiji, Rachel and Kasumi, all of whom were playable throughout the trilogy of titles. While you cannot play through the campaign in full as all characters, they each have either a dedicated section or can be played in alternate mission modes in the case of Sigma 2.

Ninja Gaiden Master Collection will release on June 10th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch and PC. We recently got to do an extensive interview with the Head of Team Ninja Fumihiko Yasudan about the release, which you can read in full through here.

"For our development team we wanted this to be an opportunity for them to get involved once again with the Ninja Gaiden franchise."

What was behind the decision of including the Sigma games in the Master Collection instead of the original releases?

The Ninja Gaiden series along with the Dead or Alive series is Team Ninja’s signature franchises. And it’s been on our minds for a long time that the Ninja Gaiden series hasn’t been available on the Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One generation of hardware as well as PC, and also the timing fit since we had completed work on Nioh 2.

In addition, the number of staff at Team Ninja who are of the generation that grew up playing Ninja Gaiden is slowly increasing. So, for our development team we wanted this to be an opportunity for them to get involved once again with the Ninja Gaiden franchise.

What sort of visual and performance upgrades can players expect from the Master Collection?

4K resolution and 60FPS for PS4 Pro, PS5, Xbox One X, Xbox Series X/S, and Steam (hardware requirements necessary). Resolution and FPS may fluctuate during gameplay, and players will of course need to have a 4K TV or monitor to play in full 4K/60FPS.

With the online multiplayer components of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Ninja Gaiden 3 not being included in the Master Collection, what led to dropping that content?

In order to perfectly replicate the online system used from the past, not only would it require a great deal of time and money, it would also place limitations on the platforms we could release it on. And given that dilemma we decided to increase the number of platforms we would release the collection on in order to reach as many players as possible rather than pursue the multiplayer feature. Nevertheless, a ranking system for competitive scoring has been implemented, and of course our signature Ninja Gaiden action can still be enjoyed to the fullest in classic single player mode.

Is there any content or DLC from the trilogy that won’t be included in the Master Collection?

Online play (Mission Mode in NG2, Ninja TRIALS and Clan Battles in NG3) are not included. Also, the Turbo Mode implemented in Sigma 2 Plus is not included.

"For a proper next-gen version, it would actually require a complete remake. We did consider it, but we also wanted to get the games into the hands of players sooner than later."

Ninja Gaiden Master Collection will be playable on PS5 via backward compatibility, but do you have plans for eventually releasing a native next-gen version as well?

There are currently no plans for a next-gen edition. For a proper next-gen version, it would actually require a complete remake. We did consider it, but we also wanted to get the games into the hands of players sooner than later. Also, if we had the time and resources for a remake we felt it would be a better served opportunity to create a new game, so that’s why we decided to go with this collection at this time.

Will the game take advantage of the PS5 and Xbox Series X and S in any meaningful way?

We focused on replicating the original games so there are no PS5 or Xbox Series X/S specific features implemented into the game.

Should fans take the launch of Master Collection as indication that there’s more to come from Ninja Gaiden in the future?

That’s a very sharp observation! If and when we have news to share, we’ll let you know!

What resolution and frame rate does the game run on on PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One, and Xbox One X?

4K resolution and 60FPS for PS4 Pro, PS5, Xbox One X, Xbox Series X/S, and Steam (hardware requirements necessary). Resolution and FPS may fluctuate during gameplay, and players will of course need to have a 4K TV or monitor to play in full 4K/60FPS.

"In the Switch version, it is 60FPS and 720p in both docked and undocked modes. This might fluctuate during gameplay, but it has been designed to prioritize stabilizing the frame rate so that the game can be played as comfortably as possible."

What frame rate and resolution are you targeting on the Switch in both docked and undocked modes?

In the Switch version, it is 60FPS and 720p in both docked and undocked modes. This might fluctuate during gameplay, but it has been designed to prioritize stabilizing the frame rate so that the game can be played as comfortably as possible.