Shinobi: Art of Vengeance features a classic, straightforward experience where you play as a ninja master on the path of revenge. There are bad guys to beat, puzzles to solve, and platforms to jump over, and if you're itching to play a 2D game that reinvents one of SEGA's most well-known franchises, then this will likely satisfy your craving.
The campaign of Shinobi: Art of Vengeance will take players through a number of action-packed levels. If you're curious as to how many hours you can squeeze out of this game, then here's a quick guide that goes over the estimated amount of time needed to complete one playthrough, as well as all the levels in the game.
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance Dev Talks Honoring the History and World of the Sega IP
Shinobi: Art of Vengeance co-developer Lizardcube sits down with The Best War Games to discuss honoring the legacy of its world and history.
How Many Hours is Shinobi: Art of Vengeance?
A complete playthrough of the Shinobi campaign can last anywhere between 10–14 hours. There are 14 main missions spread across six different zones, with three missions set in between a few of those zones. Of course, the total time it takes to beat the game depends on how quickly players can progress through each of the levels.
Our playthrough of the game took 13 hours, taking into account many checkpoint resets, exploration, and some time replaying a few of the earlier levels for secret hunting.
Apart from the Chase and Riptide missions, each of the game's levels are fairly long (roughly 20 minutes per mission or longer). More importantly, while each individual mission is set in its own contained environment, they all have Metroidvania-style design elements that encourage players to revisit them once they acquire the right tools later on. Players can replay each mission with the entire map fully explored, which means they can simply fast travel between checkpoints and skip most of the traversal and fighting.
Returning to previously-unreachable areas rewards players with Oboro Relics, Elite Squad fights, and unlockables like costumes and Dark Katana fragments from Ankou Rifts.
All Stages in Shinobi: Art of Vengeance
Shinobi features sprawling level designs filled with combat encounters and platforming segments. There are also boss fights at the end of missions (or throughout them). Each level in the game is simply named after the area they take place in, and they are as follows:
- Oboro Village
- Chase
- The Mountain
- Lantern Festival
- Neo City
- Fish Market
- Submarine Base
- Riptide
- The Desert
- Mad Train
- ENE Corp Laboratory
- The Kaiju
- The Assault
- Ruse's Limbo
Apart from these main missions, there's also the SEGA Villains Stage DLC, which is an extra stage featuring fights against iconic enemies from other SEGA games.
As a traditional 2D hack-and-slash game, Shinobi's campaign is fairly linear. Apart from the aforementioned Metroidvania-style levels, it's just one straight shot from the beginning to the end. Players will have some agency on which levels they can do first in each zone, but that's about it.
Shinobi: Art Of Vengeance
- Released
- August 29, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
- Developer(s)
- Lizardcube, Sega
- Publisher(s)
- Sega
- Number of Players
- 1
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
- PC Release Date
- August 29, 2025
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- August 29, 2025
- PS5 Release Date
- August 29, 2025
- Nintendo Switch Release Date
- August 29, 2025
- Genre(s)
- Action, Platformer, Hack and Slash
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
