When Team Ninja released Nioh, it showed the gaming world that Soulslikes were capable of innovating on From Software's formula. In this case, Team Ninja took the excellent building blocks of Ninja Gaiden's combat and laid it on the sturdy foundations of Dark Souls. Several years later with the releases of Nioh 2 and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, the developer honed their craft, culminating in their latest effort, Rise of the Ronin, which takes that signature style to an open world with mostly positive results. Mostly.



Rise of the Ronin takes place in the mid 19th century at the tailend of Japan's Edo period called Bakumatsu. The game recounts the historical Boshin war, a conflict between the Tokugawa Shogunate and various anti-shogunate factions that firmly stand against the western influences creeping into the country. Players assume the role of a custom-created wandering ronin, a Blade Twin that must make decisions that ultimately shape the outcomes of the war.



Rise of the Ronin attempts to be more of a traditional role-playing game than Nioh or Wo Long. Right off the bat, the story draws you in with its setup. The character customisation is once again excellent as expected from a Team Ninja game. Here, you can create two characters: your protagonist and your Blade Twin, who accompanies you on your mission. After a tutorial section where you can test out a handful of weapons and combat styles, you infiltrate a ship to assassinate its captain while stealthily taking out the sailors. The game throws you into the open world onwards, setting you on a path into the Boshin war.

Rise of the Ronin attempts to be more of a traditional role-playing game than Nioh or Wo Long.

This was Team Ninja's first attempt at creating an open world RPG and for the most part, it's a decently compelling one. The land is wrought with landmarks like temples, farms, small villages, bustling cities and encampments lovingly recreated from real-world historical references in Japan at the time. You can bask in some stunning scenery as you ride across fields, engage with NPCs for side activities or raid locations littered with enemies. It's not as visually splendorous as Ghost of Tsushima, especially considering that Sucker Punch's own historical samurai game came out last generation, but it's by no means a poorly designed world as there's clearly passion poured into the finer details.



However, if you pay closer attention, the visuals appear pretty rough. There are frequent texture pop-ins; in some cases, entire trees and buildings suddenly pop into existence in the distance with low-quality textures that can be distracting if you're the type to admire the backgrounds in open worlds. On the other hand, character models are pretty good with some instances of terrific motion capture and facial animations. Unfortunately, the inconsistency of Rise of the Ronin's visuals will be a sour spot for many, especially since similar games like Ghost of Tsushima or Elden Ring have already set a high bar in terms of open world presentation and polish.

If you're familiar with the Nioh games or Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, you'll feel right at home with Rise of the Ronin's gameplay which follows a very similar loop... to a fault. Team Ninja once again delivers incredible customisation options and build versatility for your character, assembling fashionable period-accurate gear with various stats and buffs.



Specific gear pieces offer less Ki consumption (think posture from Sekiro), higher defence against elements or greater damage for finishing blows, while others increase evasion and parry windows or slowly recover your health during battle. It's nothing we haven't seen before but since the game leans so heavily into its open world RPG design, the gear system feels a bit more significant than Nioh, though less rewarding considering how frequently you'll find yourself changing out pieces.

If you're familiar with the Nioh games or Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, you'll feel right at home with Rise of the Ronin's gameplay which follows a very similar loop... to a fault.

Combat in Rise of the Ronin has been streamlined for accessibility, which isn't inherently a bad thing. There's still a huge emphasis on parrying and deflecting, though parry windows are much more generous than Nioh or Wo Long, at least until you run into tougher or faster foes where it can be trickier to pull off counters. For the most part, combat is still tight and exhilarating - very few developers have nailed down that addictive, stylish gameplay loop as successfully as Team Ninja and it absolutely shines in this game.



Some experimentation is required with the assortment of different weapons you have at your disposal. You can carry a primary weapon and a secondary weapon, such as odachi blades and greatswords for heavy-hitting options, dual katanas for faster assaults or a standard katana for a great balance of the two. Mixing up the formula is the introduction of ranged firearms like the bayonet. These are more useful for picking off distant enemies with clean headshots rather than something you can realistically base your entire build around, but they're still great for thinning the herd. You also get a flamethrower that melts mobs in seconds, offering great crowd control when you really need it.

Combat is once again a dance of parrying, evading and striking when the time is right. You can technically hack and slash your way through some encounters but most punish the careless, especially if you can't wrap your head around deflecting. Enemies can and will parry you too, leaving you open to devastating strikes if your Ki bar is depleted. Likewise, you can also break an enemy's posture by parrying or putting pressure on them. The effectiveness of each weapon's playstyle can be adjusted with different stances - another carry-over from Nioh, giving players a lot of options during battle.



Rise of the Ronin features three difficulty settings (a first for Team Ninja's Soulslikes): Dawn is easy, Dusk is normal and Twilight is hard. The difficulty options will be a huge breath of fresh air for those who were turned away by the punishing challenge of the Nioh games. Rise of the Ronin presents itself as a much more accessible entry point for newcomers which is fantastic, even if it leads into arguably better experiences with Nioh and to some extent, Ninja Gaiden.

Open world activities tend to feel checkbox-y as fast travel points also spring out new icons on the map to explore, including new side quests and objectives frequently derailing you from the story.

Open world activities are admittedly pretty fun, even if they're not the most original templates for open world fluff. It has some Ubisoft elements too, for better or worse. Sections of the map are opened through organic exploration and the upwards design of the map's layout naturally escalates the difficulty, so you can't really stumble into high-level areas accidentally. Even then, the game does a good job of conveying that an area is a bit too insurmountable for you right now, so come back later with better gear and weapons. Sadly, open world activities tend to feel checkbox-y as fast travel points also spring out new icons on the map to explore, including new side quests and objectives frequently derailing you from the story.



To that end, the exciting combat does a lot of the heavy-lifting in Rise of the Ronin. It's not a revolutionary open world, but it's not a bad one either. It just feels a bit uninspired in some areas that could definitely use some improvement. If you don't mind this kind of open world design with padded busy work to grind out levels, you're probably going to find a lot to love about Rise of the Ronin. On the plus side, most activities reward you with new gear so even if the objectives feel repetitive, the rewards tend to make up for it in the end.

Throughout the game, you can enlist companions to aid you on your journey. These companions are mainly modelled after real-world historical Japanese figures like Ryoma Sakamoto which is pretty cool (and a nice Like a Dragon: Isshin! nod for Yakuza fans). Strengthening your bonds with your partners can lead to better team work in battle, new skills or even romance, adding more depth to the role-playing mechanics. Sadly your companions rarely accompany you in the open world except for segmented main story missions, so it's a bit of a wasted opportunity to not have them join you in exploration too, which could've led to stronger character building and bonding moments. Still, the feeling of rushing into battle with powerful comrades at your side never gets old.



The technical aspects of Rise of the Ronin are divisive, to say the least. As I mentioned before, it struggles to find visual consistency between its world and characters. Texture pop-ins are frequent and they don't look the most appealing even when fully rendered either. Bigger towns can also feel a bit empty apart from a handful of NPCs wandering about. To keep the framerate mostly steady, understandably some concessions had to be made in development but to the point where it hurts the immersion a bit. Framerate dips are abundant, especially when using the glider, a handy tool that lets you leap off tall buildings or cliffs and take to the sky. These are issues that can be smoothened out with patchwork, but the visuals still feel oddly dated in some ways for a PS5 game.

Texture pop-ins are frequent and they don't look the most appealing even when fully rendered either.

Rise of the Ronin might not be Team Ninja's best work but it still delivers a grand RPG adventure set in a compelling period in history. The combat is simplified yet accessible, but it still packs a punch, offering the same gritty style and flashy combos we've come to expect from the studio behind Nioh. I miss the supernatural elements of the developer's portfolio, but this is their attempt at telling a more mature, grounded narrative driven by passion for the Japanese setting, storytelling and landscape. I can still easily recommend Rise of the Ronin as a must-play for Team Ninja fans and newcomers to the Soulslike genre, though veterans looking for more bark and bite might have to look elsewhere.

*PS5 Review code provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment