rewrite this title This Was the Year of the Ninja Video Game—These Were the Best in 2025 – Decrypt

If you’re a gamer who also loves ninja-themed stuff, 2025 might’ve been the best year ever.

It seems everyone and their dog were releasing ninja and samurai games this year, as if they’d discussed it beforehand. 

Including a remaster and a new platform for an older game, we count eight ninja and samurai games released this year alone, and nine if you’re willing to include a Ninja Turtles tactics game. 

Let’s talk about the plethora of katana-centric games that hit PC and consoles this year.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows

(Available on: PC, PS5, Xbox)

Assassin’s Creed Shadows finally delivers on the request gamers have been shouting from the rooftops ever since the series launched in 2007—a ninja-themed game.

This is the most controversial game on the list, for a lot of reasons drummed up by ragebait YouTubers, along with a few valid ones. 

Shadows presents one of the most stunningly rendered depictions of Japan in the Warring States period, offering a landscape that features large cities, tall mountains, and a stretching coastline without feeling like a theme park. 

The game smartly separates AC’s two mechanical paths into two characters—Naoe the Ninja and Yasuke the Samurai. With some exceptions during the story, you can play the vast majority of the game with whichever character you please, allowing you to tackle the game as a shadowy shinobi or a tank of a samurai.

It has the problems typical of an Assassin’s Creed game: the map feels both too big and too crowded. It feels silly to knife a guy in the back of the neck only for him to live through it barely touched—though we recommend turning on one-hit assassinations for a true assassin experience. 

If you don’t like Ubisoft games in general, Shadows won’t change your mind, and you’ll want to avoid this one. If you want to hop on horseback and tour one of the most beautiful games since Red Dead Redemption 2, while shedding plenty of blood, this is the game for you.



Ghost of Yotei

(Available on: PS5)

The follow-up to 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yotei, is set in an entirely different part of Japan and takes place 300 years later, at the end of the Warring States/Sengoku period. 

You’ll play as Atsu, who is on a quest for revenge against a group of masked nobles who killed her family. It’s weirdly similar to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, but don’t let that stop you from playing both of them.

It just so happens that getting revenge against “a bunch of guys” is a solid formula for an open-world game. Atsu isn’t like Jin—she isn’t tied by honor to a single way of approaching revenge, so much as she is a kenshi, or sword master. 

There are no “honorable ways” for her to abandon. You can go stealth, you can play dirty, whatever gets the job done. In place of stances, you’ll have four different weapons at hand (such as a spear or kusarigama), with each meant to counter specific enemies. 

It’s also a stunning game and an excellent showcase for the PlayStation 5.

Ninja Gaiden II Black

(Available on: PC, PS5, Xbox)

Team Ninja took the reins of Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden series at the launch of the original Xbox. 

The best loved of the three original Team Ninja-developed Ninja Gaiden games and their subsequent rereleases was Ninja Gaiden Black, as it added two new difficulties—a new easy mode called Ninja Dog and a more difficult Master Ninja mode. 

These made the game both much more accessible to those who struggled with the first release’s high skill floor and offered a new level of difficulty for those aspiring toward new mastery. 

While another branch reworked all three games, called Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Black is the fan favorite, and was the only one in the series to get the treatment, until earlier this year when Team Ninja shadow-dropped Ninja Gaiden II Black to PC storefronts, PlayStation 5, and Game Pass, remade in Unreal Engine 5. 

Ninja Gaiden II Black ups the gore and enemy count, rolls the upgrade system back to something like that of Ninja Gaiden Black, and removes some poorly-received bosses and modes that were added to Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Fan response says that the game feels quite similar to the original release, and that it largely delivers on the expectations that come with a Ninja Gaiden game.

Ninja Gaiden 4

(Available on: PC, PS5, Xbox)

One Ninja Gaiden game simply wasn’t enough from video game developer Team Ninja.

Team Ninja didn’t just shadow-drop the Ninja Gaiden 2 remake—it also revealed Ninja Gaiden 4, back in January. 

Now it’s here, and early reception is strong, with a “Very Positive” rating on Steam. 

This time, the studio teamed up with PlatinumGames, blending both teams’ trademark action styles into a rare sequel that actually delivers instead of leaving fans nostalgic for the old days.

Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound

(Available on: PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch)

Okay, two Ninja Gaiden games weren’t enough. With two modern Ninja Gaiden games releasing in the same year, for some reason—we’re not complaining, to be clear—Tecmo decided to give the Ninja Gaiden license to one of the best 2D action devs around. 

The Game Kitchen, developer of Blasphemous and Blasphemous 2, takes the game back to its roots, with an 8-bit-style sidescroller that refuses to pull punches when it comes to difficulty and precision. 

Of the three Ninja Gaiden games released this year, Ragebound takes home the trophy of being the highest rated on both Metacritic and Steam.

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance

(Available on: PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox, Nintendo Switch)

While Ninja Gaiden Ragebound seeks to bring us back to the days of NES games, Shinobi wants to do something new without abandoning its roots. 

Shinobi keeps things two-dimensional and expands the standard sidescrolling with an overworld map where you can go back and forth to new and old levels, and “metroidvania” elements, with secret areas and branching paths. 

The controls are fluid, and bosses are fun throughout the game. On top of all this, the game is absolutely stunning to look at.

Honorable Mentions

There are some others that bear mention.

First, the re-release of Ninja Five-O onto digital storefronts. This game is sought after as one of the rarest Game Boy Advance cartridges, and this is the first time it’s been generally available to gamers. 

This year also saw the release of Rise of the Ronin, an open-world game initially released for the PlayStation 5 last year, developed and published by Ninja Gaiden publisher Koei Tecmo. 

Rise of the Ronin is set in the 1800s, at the end of the shogunate, as American black ships arrive. 

If you prefer your ninjas to also be turtles, there’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, a turn-based TMNT game that forces you to keep your turtles on their feet and moving as they fight.