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Xbox Developer Direct: 5 major announcements

A shadow drop of Ninja Gaiden 2 Black just made our weekend

Xbox Developer Direct: 5 major announcements
Andrew Williams
24 January 2025

Xbox just held its latest Developer Direct event, where third-party publishers and developers get to show off their upcoming games.

The show lasted for 53 minutes, and you can watch the whole thing below.

But this time we weren’t actually left to drown in a deluge of titles.

Instead, we got a deeper dive into four titles, plus the announcement of a fifth. Don't fancy watching the whole thing? Let's sum up the five games you need to know about.

Ninja Gaiden 4 is coming

First up is Ninja Garden 4 from Team Ninja and PlatinumGames, announced during the show. It’s the first new entry in the series since 2012’s Ninja Gaiden 3. And it looks intense, fast and bloody as heck.

Ninja Gaiden 4 is due for release in the Autumn.

Here’s the release trailer:

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is out now

We also got one of the things we love most: a shadow drop. This is where a game falls out of the sky, and gets not just announced but released during one of these shows.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black is out now on Xbox and Xbox Game Pass, as well as PC and PlayStation 5. It’s an Unreal Engine 5 remake of the 2008 original, and you can dig into it this weekend.

Doom: The Dark Ages deep dive

Xbox’s Developer Direct gave us a deep dive look into Doom: The Dark Ages, the follow-up to Doom: Eternal.

As we saw in previous trailers and teasers for this shooter, The Dark Ages switches up the gameplay style. The aim is to make you feel like a true demon-destroying powerhouse, an “iron tank” that can also dodge enemy fire.

This is a prequel top 2016’s Doom, set in a hellish dark fantasy world. It's out on May 15.

Expedition 33: A different flavour of RPG

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is something completely different, a fantasy RPG that blends Japanese and western styles.

The combat looks like it could have been lifted from a Square Enix game, while the setting is inspired by pre-WW1 France, dubbed the Belle Epoque era.

It’s due out on April 24, and comes to Game Pass on day one. PC and PlayStation 5 owners will get this one too.

South of Midnight: a trip to the bayou

Finally, there was a closer look at the story of South of Midnight, which is coming on April 8 to Game Pass.

It’s an action RPG set in the deep south of America, in the boggy bayou.

We’ve already experienced plenty of the game’s highly stylised, stop-motion inspired, magic-infused personality before. But there's also another look at what appears to be Dark Souls-adjacent combat and enemy design.