Rise of the Ronin Reviews

While still an apt Souls-like experience, Rise of the Ronin struggles to find its identity amongst Team Ninja's catalogue. It feels like it's being pulled in different directions, and starts to collapse under its own ambition in the third act. In saying this, the DNA of Nioh and Wo Long is palpable here, and I have no doubt that fans of Team Ninja will enjoy this first foray into open world design despite its shortcomings.

Rise of the Ronin does a great job at combining combat and stealth, improved by a vast array of weapons to wield. The characters are memorable, as are the locations, showing off bakumatsu Japan. Regrettably, performance issues sour the experience.

Another fumbled PC port blighted by poor optimisation and unpredictable performance issues.

Rise of the Ronin is a great open-world action RPG with positives that heavily outshine the negatives, but it won't be enjoyable on the Steam Deck.

In the bustling landscape of action games, Team Ninja has carved a reputation for creating challenging, fast-paced experiences that test players’ skills and reflexes. Their latest venture, Rise of the Ronin, initially launched as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, has now made its way to PC, bringing with it the promise of enhanced features and performance options. While we previously explored the game’s core mechanics and design philosophy in our console review, this time we’re focusing exclus...

If you missed it on PS5 or are looking for a new adventure to get your teeth into, Rise of the Ronin is worth a shout on PC.

Rise of the Ronin may feature a formulaic open-world structure, but it's still an amazing action RPG despite that. Unfortunately, your mileage with the PC port may vary, so proceed with caution.

Due to some strange technical issues, Rise of the Ronin on PC isn’t exactly the definitive version of the game. However, it’s still a good game with satisfying combat, and generally runs better here than it did on PS5.

Accessible, fun, and full of ambition, Rise of the Ronin will have you hooked on its combat no matter what type of player you are - with an exciting story of engaging characters being bloodied icing on the cake.

Whether you are a history nut or an action RPG lover, Rise of the Ronin should be your next choice in a game. You’ll have fun dicing up your enemies while learning about Japan’s rich culture. It’s the perfect combination of the two, and I hope to see more entries like this to dive more into historical content.

“Rise of the Ronin isn't the best Soulslike out there, but it has one heck of a parry system.”

Rise of the Ronin is a fantastic action RPG with one of the best combat mechanics in recent years. While the open-world exploration needs polish, this installment is addictive and enjoyable from start to finish.

For as expansive as their missions and environments have been, Team Ninja hasn’t devised an entirely open-world adventure. That is, until Rise of the Ronin, their latest masocore adventure. Rise of the Ronin treads a lot of new ground while taking place solely in a relatively grounded story based upon the Bakumatsu Period of Japan.

Rise of the Ronin tells an interesting story in a realistic historical setting with some outstanding combat mechanics but lets its dated open-world design and poor performance drag it down.

Ultimately, Rise of the Ronin will be a mixed bag for people. The combat will carry it for many, but the lack of variety in the open world, messy story, and performance issues will take away from others.

When the issues of a game are rolled and stomped by its greatness, then it’s something to invest on if you have some spare.

There’s plenty to enjoy here. The world itself is a delight, every combat encounter is a blast and gets more fun as you progress, and Team Ninja’s endearing auteur influences are plastered all over Rise of the Ronin. I truly enjoyed Rise of the Ronin and everything it accomplished, but it tries to fill a gap that didn’t need to be filled, and I’m left wondering which direction we’re headed in next.

Rise of the Ronin is a lot of fun but does it live up to other memorable offerings from Team Ninja? Sharpen your blade and let's find out.

Team Ninja’s latest action blockbuster has slashed its way into our lives, bringing a new take on 19th-century Japan and some familiar open-world setpieces. A nameless samurai with no set allegiances walks through a world ravaged by political unrest, allowing you to forge your own path in a game where roleplaying is lovingly facilitated. Yet it’s the ferocious and reactionary swordplay that will keep you coming back, even amidst the overused game design tropes.

“In a mad world, only the mad are sane,” a stirring line from Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 samurai epic Ran, urges us to remember that in times of chaos, strange or unconventional ideas may actually be wise. In Rise of the Rōnin, I argue Team Ninja exemplifies that madness with an open-world title far outside its usual comfort zone. Unfortunately, even in a mad world, seeing the wisdom in many of the decisions made here is difficult.

Rise of the Rōnin's open world is vast and content-rich, but it's a case of quantity over quality that's only partially rescued by the unambitious but technically adequate combat.

Rise of the Ronin is an incredible open-world action-RPG. Its version of Bakumatsu era Japan is beautiful and delightful to explore, with plenty of activities that don’t fall deep into the open-world genre’s trap of being tedious. Its combat and customization are also incredibly well-refined, allowing you to become the martial artist you want to be, whether it’s an assassin, brigand, gunslinger, or more. The characters were fun to get to know and help a lot in reducing what would otherwise be some ridiculously difficult fights in the game. Don’t get me wrong though, this game has moments where it’s Team Ninja hard. Nonetheless, it’s still an incredible journey of cultural revolution and familial salvation. Between its solid combat, varied open world, and enjoyable characters, Rise of the Ronin sets a new tier of excellence in Team Ninja’s game design.

Maybe not an open-world game changer, but Rise of the Ronin is a fun blend of accessible action and ancient history

Rise of the Ronin dilutes the gameplay of Nioh and Wo Long to accomodate for an open world that offers little of worth. Combat is still great despite this, but it could have been so much more.

Seemingly every common sandbox system eventually manifests in Rise of the Ronin, including faction mechanics, glider challenges, crafting and gear upgrades, and outpost-clearing. They all have an additional level of polish, though, an ease-of-use mustered from careful observation of the genre’s tropes. For example, any missed item drops are immediately collected when completing a section of a mission or clearing out a bandit camp, and players can drop a marker on the map at will and order their steed to pilot them there hands-free, automatically hoovering up any nearby crafting materials on the way.

Team Ninja borrows the open-world familiarity and historical tourism of Assassin’s Creed while adapting its own breed of hardcore action for the mainstream.

Team Ninja's ambitious open-world action RPG is one of the best games about the Bakumatsu era ever, but its repetitive, uninspired open-world activities bog down what is an otherwise captivating experience.

It’s safe to say that Rise of the Ronin is perhaps Koei Tecmo’s largest and most ambitious game yet. There’s tens of hours of fun to be had here, living out your fantasy life as a Ronin. Who you ally yourself with and how you develop your character is up to you, and with so many options, you could have a very different experience compared to a friend who is also playing. It’s just a shame that its open world areas aren’t a little more interesting; it ends up diluting the experience on the whole. Still, whether you love open world games, action RPGs or simply like the idea of being a samurai, Rise of the Ronin is worthy of your attention.

A jack of all trades and master of some, though Rise of the Ronin feels like a melting pot of influences from other games, it is also quite the surprise of the year for me thus far as it clearly shows that Team Ninja has a confident grasp of compelling open world design in a way that many of its genre stablemates do not. Though the visual presentation might be comparatively a little rough around the edges, Rise of the Ronin nonetheless is simultaneously the most accessible and ambitious game Team Ninja has done to date and one that both hardcore action RPG fiends and open world adventure aficionados will surely embrace.

Though it has a somewhat steep combat learning curve and some dated open-world ideas, Rise of the Ronin does a great job of rewarding your time in its world.

Rise of the Ronin isn't just Team Ninja's most ambitious game to date; it's also its most important one. With this title, the studio has pivoted into a bold new direction while still retaining the essence of its classic titles. However, if the studio's past games didn't click for you, it's unlikely that Rise of the Ronin will. But if they did, this will feel like a radical improvement from Team Ninja's previous titles, with plenty to be excited about what lies ahead.

With a clear identity, a charming setting, and one of the best combat systems out there, Rise of Ronin is indeed Team Ninja’s best Action RPG so far.

Team Ninja's most ambitious project today is a successful one, albeit not a flawless one. Rise of the Ronin aims to deliver an epic story filled with well-rounded characters, an open-world adventure, action-filled combat and a presentation taking advantage of current-gen hardware. For the most part, it succeeds. The story is indeed epic, with plenty of intrigue delivered by well-rounded characters, even at the cost of the player character. Exploring Japan's famous cities is a real treat, with plenty of activities to interact with. Combat is fast, fun and inventive, even though sometimes things can get too chaotic for the mechanics to handle. It's easily Team Ninja's most approachable game, providing both a story-focused experience for casual players and a hardcore experience for Nioh and Wo Long veterans. The presentation may not live up to or run at the current generation's standards, but the game looks decent enough and performs well enough to remain fun throughout. Team Ninja shot for the moon and delivered a fun open-world action game that, despite its faults, is an excellent experience. Rise of the Ronin provides a fantastic new vision for Team Ninja.

Rise of the Ronin promises to be Team Ninja’s most ambitious game yet, but does this samurai epic bring with it the winds of change or does the PS5 exclusive fall like the shogunate itself?

Rise of the Ronin is bloated and messy, but not without its special moments.

By trying to do so much, Rise of the Ronin feels like an inferior version of everything it's inspired by. With an open world populated by map markers and side activities, it’s a worse Assassin's Creed. With a historical Japanese setting, it's a worse Ghost of Tsushima. With a combat system that prioritises parrying, it's a worse Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. At no point is it a bad experience, but the game's so run of the mill, so formulaic that attempting something new and ultimately failing would have been a more tantalising sell. You've already played better versions of Rise of the Ronin — what it's attempting is just fine, which is probably the most boring outcome possible.

Rise of the Ronin is undeniably an evolution of everything Team Ninja has made before, it just picked the wrong path to evolve.

The open world of Rise of the Ronin is addictive, and the plot, deeply rooted in the history and politics of 19th-century Japan, is interesting. What I will remember from the new game by Team Ninja is the excellent combat system, which gives a lot of satisfaction.

Rise of the Ronin was the near-perfect samurai/ronin open-world RPG that I have been starving for, and offers players a lot of choice in their playstyle.

Rise of the Ronin brings back many of the looter and Soulslike elements shared between Nioh, Nioh 2, Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, while packing a game's worth of new systems on top of them. In addition to stealth and open-world traversal elements, Rise of the Ronin emphasizes meaningful bonds and decisions that carry gameplay and narrative weight. Weaving roleplaying and action together allows Rise of the Ronin to simultaneously be to Nioh what Elden Ring was to Dark Souls, while also expanding its identity beyond what a Souls game would allow.