In recent days, rumors have surfaced that Rise of the Ronin will not be released in South Korea, and Sony has officially confirmed this, although it has not given a detailed explanation.
Initially, the news appeared on the Korean portal Daum, but everyone was waiting for an official message from Sony.
There was no official message, but the GamesIndustry.biz portal received confirmation from Sony PlayStation:
Rise of the Ronin for PS5 was never announced for release in Korea. We can confirm that the game will not be sold or released in South Korea in any form, physical or digital.
Thus, there is clear confirmation of the reluctance to distribute Rise of the Ronin in Korea, but the question remains what prompted the local Sony PlayStation branch to make such a drastic decision.
As we have already reported, this may be due to the statements of game director Fumuhiko Yasuda about the Japanese philosopher and thinker of the 19th century Shoin Yoshida. The latter is considered a kind of guide to the various leaders of the Meiji Restoration, which returned the emperor to the post of head of Japan.
In fact, he is a key figure in shaping the mentality, philosophy and policies of Imperial Japan, including the pursuit of expansion in the Pacific. Yoshida believed that Japan’s power should be based on aggressive expansion towards its neighbors, including the invasion of Korea.
Although this did not actually happen until decades later, in the early 1900s, it was nevertheless seen as a consequence of the theories of Yoshida, a figure who is viewed in an extremely negative light in Korea.
In a behind-the-scenes video promoting Rise of the Ronin, director Yasuda had some positive words for the thinker who is seen as a key figure in the game: comparing him to Socrates, Yasuda said: “I wanted to bring back his teachings and his life since then. “how we started developing Rise of the Ronin. He wasn’t just a philosopher, he was someone who insisted on the importance of action.”