Rise of the Ronin from Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo made an expected appearance during PlayStation’s first State of Play event of 2024. The PS5 exclusive that got a release date in December during The Game Awards was one of several games previously announced to be a part of the State of Play presentation with PS5 players getting a new look today at Team Ninja’s take on the open-world RPG set in 19th-century Japan. The new gameplay revealed this week included a better look at the game’s combat system and some of the RPG mechanics at play in Rise of the Ronin.
The lengthy look at Rise of the Ronin gameplay released this week focused mainly on the combat in the game and how players can chain together melee attacks with ranged weapons. Like other melee-centric games made in this style, there seems to be a strong focus put on parrying and wearing down enemies’ “guards” or stamina bars in order to overwhelm them.
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Rise of the Ronin Gameplay
In previous talks about Rise of the Ronin, Team Ninja has referred to the main character only as “a Ronin character” without imparting many details on who this character is supposed to be beyond a warrior without a master. Those past conversations about Rise of the Ronin closer to when it was revealed and got a release date did indicate that the game would be an RPG but didn’t specify anything about possible character creation elements or how much control players would have over the protagonist’s direction. The character was confirmed to have a full backstory, however, so players took that as a hint as to how the narrative would be structure and what levels of freedom players would have.
On a very, very surface level look at the game, people have made comparisons between Rise of the Ronin and other titles like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and Ghost of Tsushima. The game certainly looks more like the latter than FromSoftware’s hit game, but it’s still got some key differences that sets it apart from Sucker Punch Productions’ game. Both games are set in Japan, but Rise of the Ronin takes place in 1863 while Ghost of Tsushima takes place in 1274. Guns were not yet prevalent in Japan during the time Ghost of Tsushima took place but were used more often by the time the events of Rise of the Ronin would transpire, so those firearms authentic to that time period will be one of the key differences players will notice that’s tied directly to the setting.
“Here in this time of mayhem, you embody a Ronin character, a warrior bound to no master and free to make choices of its own. Rise of the Ronin is a new Team Ninja experience that will immerse you in an historically inspired world while bringing together its renowned combat action with Katanas and the likes, with new firearm weaponry that depicts the unique personality of its time period.”
Team Ninja is responsible for several games in recent year that feature combinations of melee and ranged combat including Nioh 2, the Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, so if you’re trying to gauge beyond this gameplay if you’ll be interested in Rise of the Ronin, look no further than those games.
Rise of the Ronin releases for the PS5 on March 22nd.
