Rise of the Ronin

Rise of the Ronin is a sprawling open-world action game from Team Ninja, set in the turbulent period at the end of the shogunate era in nineteenth-century Japan, as the country is forcibly opened to Western influence and internal factions fight over the future direction of the entire island nation. The player takes on the role of a nameless ronin trained by a secret order, whose fate becomes intertwined with real historical events and figures of the Bakumatsu era, while choices made in dialogue and missions influence which faction the hero ultimately sides with and how the story ultimately ends, giving the game room for repeated playthroughs with different outcomes.

The combat system builds on Team Ninja's earlier experience with games like Nioh — combining various weapon combat styles from katana to naginata, which can be switched on the fly, with an emphasis on parrying called Counterspark and exploiting the specific weaknesses of individual opponents based on their own combat school. The open world offers a horse for fast travel across the landscape, a glider for descending from heights, and plenty of side activities from photographing period landmarks to building personal relationships with companion characters, which affect available equipment as well as alternative paths through the story. On PlayStation 5 the game makes use of expansive environments in Yokohama, Kyoto, and Edo with detailed period architecture and changeable weather that alters both visibility and enemy behavior.

Critics praised the ambitious scope, the combat system, and the unconventional historical setting, though they pointed out technical shortcomings and a less refined open world compared to competing titles in the genre. Rise of the Ronin nonetheless represents a significant step by Team Ninja toward large open worlds and offers a unique look at a less commonly portrayed historical era within the action samurai genre, which is otherwise dominated by more fictional stories.

Why play it: For fans of action samurai games set in a less common historical era, who can forgive technical rough edges in exchange for a vast world and a stylish combat system.