Ninja Gaiden 4's difficulty design presented in new Tokyo Game Show video

Ninja Gaiden 4 was showcased at Microsoft's Tokyo Game Show event, and this time the focus was on the difficulty level. The first two games in the series (created by Tomonobu Itagaki) were known for being extremely challenging, so a number of tools have been developed for the fourth installment to make things more accessible.

There are three difficulty levels in total, each of which includes different forms of assistance. If you play on the easiest level, Hero, you can activate "Auto Evade, Auto Block, and Auto Assist" to make the battles more manageable, and there are also tools that go even further if you need help with healing or difficult platforming passages.

Once you feel more comfortable with a difficulty level, you can easily increase (or decrease) the difficulty at any time in the adventure. For true veterans, it is also possible to "disable Hit Lag (hit stop) or hide the Lock-on Marker that indicates targets you will attack" for a truly ninja-difficult experience that really tests your reflexes, and if even that is too mundane, there is a hyper-difficult Death Wish mode.

Just like in fighting games, there's a dedicated training mode so you can learn combos, special attacks, and other tricks without getting beaten up in the campaign. You can check out all this and more in the new trailer below.

Ninja Gaiden 4 launches on October 21 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S/X, and is also included with Game Pass.