Ninja Gaiden 4 may not blaze the same cutting-edge graphical trail of its forebears, but this cross-platform action-slasher still delivers a stylish, bloody good time across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. This first entry in the series from Platinum Games (Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Nier: Automata) delivers a lot for series fans to love, and we've mostly found good performance news across the board wherever you elect to play it.

Platinum Games' track record on PC isn't exactly ironclad, so the good news begins with what we've unearthed: possibly the first-ever game on Platinum's in-house engine to support DirectX 12 and DirectStorage. That bump to DX12 is matched by excellent fidelity, as our higher-end PC testing exhibited zero frame-time stutter and benefited from upscaling technologies like DLSS and FSR. (Plus, ultrawide monitor support is great news for the game's epic battle sequences.)

If you don't have a higher-end PC, we can at least confirm the PC port's scalability goes down to as low as a Steam Deck. We suggest skipping NG4's Deck-specific visual preset and custom-tweaking image settings to reach a cleaner-looking 30 fps refresh.

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Click the above image for a high-res comparison of the three visual modes available on console versions of Ninja Gaiden 4.

In the game's default performance mode on consoles, both Xbox Series X and base PS5 run at an apparent 1080p resolution, upscaled via FSR to 4K, and nearly lock to 60 fps. Series X has a very slight performance lead, but NG4's sub-60 fps moments are negligible on both consoles.

Players on both of these consoles can also select a 30 fps "quality" mode, which upscales from a base of roughly 1440p, or a 720p "120 fps mode," but we don't necessarily recommend either. The quality mode suffers from regular frame time stutter and additionally feels sluggish at a mere 30 fps, while the 120fps mode lands somewhere closer to the 90-100 fps line and sacrifices visual effects like SSR, motion blur and select particle effects.

The sweet console spot for NG4, surprisingly, is PlayStation 5 Pro, which offers the base consoles' 1440p quality mode at an unlocked frame rate. The results can run from 60-100 fps in the game's most frenetic scenes, all with the added handsome benefit of PSSR upscaling. It's one of the PS5 Pro's best jumps in comparison to base PS5 in 2025.

The opposite end of that spectrum, Xbox Series S, doesn't fare nearly as well. Its own 60 fps mode runs at somewhere near 720p resolution, only with severely downgraded textures and reduced visual settings (meaning, no SSR, motion blur, or other handsome effects turned on). It's a heavy cost to pay for a mostly locked 60 fps refresh rate. As John Linneman suggests in the above video, "pretend you're playing Ninja Gaiden Sigma 4 on the PS3." Things are rougher for Series S's quality mode, which opts for an unlocked and highly unstable frame rate between 25-35 fps. We strongly recommend not toggling that mode.

For more on the game's emphasis on more open, DirectStorage-powered worlds to run through and its fantastic music, Linneman's above video has you covered.