UPCOMING Rise of the Ronin is set to be a big game for Japanese history buffs, fans of action games and devout followers of developer Team Ninja’s previous offerings.
A stark contrast to their previous games, Ronin is Team Ninja’s first open-world game and their first project with a narrative that is based on actual history, rather than their comical stories in the Nioh and Dead or Alive games, or the straightforward mission design in their Ninja Gaiden games.
This article will look at how Team Ninja steps out of their comfort zone with Ronin, along with the game’s historical setting.
A huge playground
Looking at the map, Ronin may seem small, but that is simply bad scaling. The actual location, which is a bustling port city, is huge and the biggest, most intricate world design Team Ninja has apparently attempted.
Due to the sheer size of Ronin’s playground that players will be thrust into, there are traversal options to navigate this version of Japan in 1863. Players will have the option of riding a horse to quickly get across the bustling game world.
Further stepping out of their comfort zone, Team Ninja has also injected a vertical dimension to the game, by allowing players to climb buildings and structures, or to quickly zip up by using a grappling hook.
Not stopping there, the game also has an aerial dimension, providing players with a prototype glider (possibly later in the game) so that they can fly from one location to another, or even to infiltrate locations. In feudal Japan, no one expects a samurai to come flying in from above after all.
Between land and sea
Set in 1963, during the Bakumatsu years, players will take on the role of a ronin carving their own way through the end of the Tokugawa period. This was the period when the “Black Ships of the West” descended on Japan, forcing the country to open up to the rest of the world while simultaneously plunging the island nation into political turmoil.
Ronin will take place in the city of Yokohama. In the present day real world, it is Japan’s second-largest city, but the Yokohama in Ronin had just begun developing away from its roots as a small fishing village. The city in the game captures its location as a bustling port and a base of foreign trade in Japan.
The entire area will be open for players to explore, with several key locations of interest. One is the Elephant’s Nose Breakwaters, which was built when the Yokohama port was opened. The name comes from how the original two breakwaters were remodelled into a curved shape.
There will most likely be players intentionally starting sword fights while grappling from one boat to another here.
Like many other ports in the world, the city is a cultural melting pot beyond just its native Japanese culture. These locations include the Yokohama Chinatown that was formed by migrant Qing people from China. There is also the Yokohama Kihinkan, a distinctly unique building with Western architecture and elements.
After Yokohama, Ronin will take players to the cities of Edo (now Tokyo) and Kyoto.
Vying for power
Due to the Tokugawa shogunate coming under siege as its almost 300 year rule comes ever closer to the end, players will encounter several factions attempting to take control of the situation during the game’s Bakumatsu years.
Loyalists to the Tokugawa shogunate, the Sabaku faction consists of shogunate chief minister Naosuki Ii, geisha Taka Murayama, naval commander Kaishu Katsu. On the other end of the political spectrum is the anti-shogunate Tobaku faction, composed of a ragtag group of ronins and feudal retainers such as Ryoma Sakamoto, Kogoro Katsura and Genzui Kusaka.
As Ronin is a historical game, Team Ninja based have used real world characters with known roles in feudal Japan.
In the midst of the power struggle between Tokugawa loyalists desperately trying to hold to power and anti-shogunate forces seeking to seize it, there is also the Western presence in the form of United States Navy commodore Matthew Perry, British diplomat Rutherford Alcock and French army officer Jules Brunet, seeking to advance their own nationalistic agendas in Japan.
Rise of the Ronin releases exclusively on the PlayStation 5 this Friday.
