A desert: Filled with an abandoned city of wooden structures still only half-built, and laid out like a maze. Hiding in the sand, loitering around corners, and posted at high-up sniper points are the bad guys, ready and waiting for our hero to venture into this snakepit.

A hero: A man clad in black, quick on his feet, a blade in his hand. A blade literally in his arm and now unleashed, taking the form of a fiery dragon that swoops on his enemies and scoops them off the ground. Better get a mop ready: Ryu Hayabusa’s return to Xbox is going to be bloody.

Ninja Gaiden, the ultimate hardcore combo slasher, is back. This time, Hayabusa must chase down a powerful alchemist named The Regent of the Mask, who’s kidnapped the prime minister of Britain. But when the two adversaries clash, the Regent places a curse on Hayabusa: the Dragon Sword melds with Ryu’s right arm, along with the rage of all the people it’s killed. Hayabusa must then track the terrorist around the world to thwart his evil plans and sort his arm out.

By now you’ve heard about Ninja Gaiden 3’s new tricks: the quick-time events (QTEs) that punctuate the combo system, changing the pace of the game entirely; the Hero Mode that is designed to broaden its appeal to newcomers; the concept of “consequence,” with enemy soldiers pleading for their lives and tugging on your conscience. And now, after an exclusive visit with Koei Tecmo’s Team Ninja development team at their Tokyo headquarters, and chats with the brains behind the game, we can reveal some awesome exclusive details on these features.

Let’s start with the QTEs. “The past games in the Ninja Gaiden series were all about making the action faster and faster,” says Yosuke Hayashi, bespectacled producer of Ninja Gaiden 3 and head of Team Ninja. “But this time we worked hard to add more variety to the rhythm of the action.”

The good news is that the QTEs do not break the game, as fans understandably fear they might. Far from it: they’ve been integrated into the combo system to give a more dramatic feel. In the first level, set in London (where the Regent is based), Hayabusa glides down from Big Ben and, with a tap of the Y button as it flashes on screen, takes out one of the soldiers employed by the masked terrorist. Blood splatters the screen.

From there, it’s a case of combining jabs of X and Y to chain up (all-new) attacks. Then, when Hayabusa goes in for a finishing slash, a QTE button flashes up, the frame zooms tight and goes into slo-mo, and your sword passes with realistic difficulty through the enemy’s bones before the game speeds up again and you move on to the next victim. This graceful ebb and flow makes the game not only more cinematic but also more interesting — especially, we hope, over a really long play session.

Frays are now also more tactical. The game throws wave after wave of enemies at you, just as it always has, but since some are armed with rocket launchers, guns, or shields, you’ll have to figure out which ones to pick off first. Also, gone are the energy-replenishing blue orbs of the previous games; the only way to recover your health is to use a magic Ninpo attack, which unleashes a dragon from Hayabusa’s arm to clear up the bad guys and gives your health bar a boost in the process. So your choice of when to use your Ninpo will make all the difference.

During our exclusive hands-on time with NG3, we played through the Rub’ al Khali desert area, which will be Stage 2 in the game. Hayabusa must infiltrate the aforementioned mysterious wooden city using the futuristic bow and arrow given to him by his CIA contact, Mizuki McCleod; use this to breach the perimeter and take out soldiers zooming around on sand bikes. Other weapons from early Ninja Gaiden games will be available as DLC, though Hayashi tells us that most of the armed combat in the game will revolve around swords.

“As you progress through the story and you get more swords, you’ll unlock more attacks, finishing moves, and combos,” says Hayashi.

Indeed, in the next cutscene — the sort of impossibly gorgeous CGI movie that you’ve come to expect from Team Ninja — Ayane from the Dead Or Alive series presents Hayabusa with a new sword from DOA’s Hayate. Next, we enter the wooden structure, scaling walls, swinging from poles (a tricky mechanic involving difficult-to-time presses of X), falling through floorboards and, wherever possible, sneaking up on enemies to deliver a stealth kill.