Summary
Rise of the Roninrepresents new territory for Team Ninja, with the title serving as the studio’s first foray into open-world game design. Prior toRise of the Ronin, most Team Ninja titles have traditionally relied on a mission-based structure, with bothNiohgames,Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, andWo Long: Fallen Dynastyadhering to this kind of model. One of the main gripes players have with the studio’s past games is their seemingly uninspired level design, and it’s a studio curse thatRise of the Ronindefinitively breaks with its art direction and environmental diversity.
Players still take on “missions” inRise of the Ronin, but the process is decidedly more organic than inTeam Ninja’s previous gamesthanks to the title’s take on an open-world Soulslike adventure. Rather than selecting levels from a menu and dropping into self-contained maps that pale in comparison to the encounters they feature,Rise of the Roninprovides a captivating rendition of 19th Century Japan that offers plenty of verticality and variation in its art direction, avoiding one of the few areas of weakness inherent in Team Ninja’s other titles.
Rise of the Ronin is an Ambitious Step Forward for Team Ninja
Comparisons betweenGhost of TsushimaandRise of the Roninare well-deserved considering both games are open-world adventures set in Japan featuring samurai protagonists, butRise of the Roninearns its own unique identity thanks to the ways Team Ninja has designed its world. WhereGhost of Tsushimais arguably still one of the best-looking open-world games and a showcase of Sucker Punch’s stellar art direction,Rise of the Roninis equally impressive, albeit differently. WhereRise of the Roninshines is in its setting, allowing the developer to incorporate a surprising amount of verticality in the world design.
The temporal difference betweenGhost of Tsushima’s 13th Century Japan andRise of the Ronin’s 19th Century Japan ends up allowing Team Ninja to incorporate Western-style architecture and buildings into the game’s cities. The city of Yokohama is rife with tall towers and plenty of commercial buildings for the player to grapple up to, and its rendition of the merging between isolationist Japan and Western influence allows for some truly inspired interactive spaces. Even outside the few cities, the player gets to visit,Rise of the Ronin’s open worldfeatures plenty of excellent diversity in its biomes and variation in the topography, making the act of just wandering around the map an enjoyable and exciting experience.
How Team Ninja’s Level Design Has Evolved
Most fans' first experience with Team Ninja would come about from playing the classic character-action reinvention oftheNinja Gaidenseries. Since those games' release, the DNA of the 6th and 7th generationNinja Gaidentitles has continued to show up time and again in Team Ninja’s modern output, including its somewhat bland level design. While Team Ninja games are known for their excellent white-knuckle combat and incredibly deep mechanics and high skill ceiling, level design has traditionally been one area where the company struggles. Though the interactive spaces in its games might have some compelling art direction, Team Ninja used to never branch far from one series of corridors after another.
BothNioh 2andWo Long: Fallen Dynastyare two games to somewhat buck this trend, offering more biome diversity and interesting level layouts than previousTeam Ninja games, but the combat of both those titles was still undoubtedly the main focus. And whileRise of the Roninessentially entices players from one satisfying combat encounter to the next, the spaces in which these encounters take place are a massive improvement over Team Ninja’s prior output and a stunning display of how much the studio’s approach to level design has improved in just the short time sinceWo Long’s release.
Rise of the Ronin
WHERE TO PLAY
FORGE YOUR FATE IN THIS EPIC NEW SAMURAI ACTION ADVENTURE Embark on an epic journey across war-torn 19th-century Japan in this combat-focused open-world action RPG from Team NINJA, the veteran studio behind Nioh and NINJA GAIDEN.Japan, 1863. After three centuries of the Tokugawa Shogunate’s reign, the Black Ships of the West descend upon the nation’s borders and the country falls into a state of turmoil. Amidst the chaos of war, disease, and political unrest, a nameless warrior forges their own path, holding the very fate of Japan in their hands
