Game news Rise of the Ronin: The best action game from the dads of Nioh and Wo Long on PS5?
Published on 03/24/2024 at 9:05 p.m.
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Available since March 22, 2024 on PS5, Rise of the Ronin is the latest baby from Team Ninja. An important release for the studio, which here delivers its first open world… To find out more about this stage, we spoke with Yosuke Hayashi and Fumihiko Yasuda from the Japanese studio.
After years of linear action games, Team Ninja (Nioh | Wo Long) finally succumbs to the call of the open world with Rise of the Ronin! This action-adventure game, in development for nearly eight years, marks a new stage for the studio and also sets the scene for an era almost never seen in a video game, the Bakumatsu period in 1850s Japan. “We had it in mind from the start of production,” explains Yosuke Hayashi – producer – with whom we spoke via Teams… “We thought it was the most suitable framework for our open world”.
Pre-order Rise of the Ronin PS5 on Amazon
An ideal period
For good reason, in 1850, Japan was at a pivotal stage! The country opens up to the rest of the world after 250 years of Tokugawa rule and enters a more modern era but also plagued by unrest. Not everyone looks favorably on the arrival of foreigners who – alongside technological progress – bring new ideas (and even a few diseases) back with them. Brief, the ideal breeding ground for Team Ninja to develop its narrative and forces, in passing, the player to choose between the “pro” and the “anti-shogunate”. A formula that required a lot of testing from the team.
“For Rise of the Ronin, we were confident about the combat, but for the other gameplay elements (the open world, the branching narrative, editor's note), it took us a lot of time, we had to try, fail and start again to find the right concept” – Y. Hayash, producuteur de Rise of the Ronin
Finally: the studio believes it has managed to “mix the combat with the other aspects” of Rise of the Ronin, while remaining faithful to its identity… “The signature of Team Nina is to ensure that everything is pleasant to use, whether it be the action phases, or the mechanics for moving around the world,” summarizes Fumihiko Yasuda – director of the project. And on this point, the contract is fulfilled. In our test, we noted “super fluid movements” and confrontations that were both “tactical, readable and visceral”, which demonstrated a frankly impressive richness.
Successful fights
As usual, Team Ninja's action gameplay has been the subject of particular care here, and is in some way the synthesis of Nioh and Wo Long Fallen Dynasty… On the one hand, the player must monitor his endurance bar (which decreases with attacks, dodges, and special abilities). On the other hand, there is a big emphasis on parrying which, mixed with certain powers, allows you to bring down the enemy's energy and deliver devastating finish moves. Rise of the Ronin also counts on “Combat Styles”, an evolution of Nioh's postures. Each of the 9 weapon families has several styles, with systematically an arsenal of unique attacks.
“In this game, most of the enemies are samurai and ninjas (unlike the supernatural creatures of Nioh and Wo Long, editor's note) and we wanted to create a system where players could immerse themselves in very interesting combat”, explains Fumihiko Yasuda… “Of course, we also looked at what we had done well in the past (…) and what we could improve, to add these changes to Rise of the Ronin”. In many ways, this latest game is the culmination of Team Ninja's vision with a combat system with enormous possibilities. But, in our opinion, the team may have wanted to do “too much”. To find out everything, we invite you to consult our test.
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