Director Fumihiko Yasuda has revealed the games that served as an inspiration for Rise of the Ronin, his first-ever open-world game.
In a recent interview with VGC, Yasuda mentioned he was playing games like Assassin’s Creed and Red Dead Redemption while conceptualizing Rise of the Ronin. The idea for developing an expansive open-world game while staying true to Team Ninja’s mastery in Ninja/ Samurai games was ruminating in Yasuda’s head around eight years ago.
While Team Ninja is popular for its high-stakes and fast-paced action games, Ronin is the developer’s first open-world title. In its previous titles, like Nioh and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Team Ninja focused on tight pacing, high-stakes, and parry-driven combat. It designed gameplay levels that would reflect and complement the developer’s focus on combat.
With Rise of the Ronin, the developer wanted to offer players the liberty to engage with the game in any way they deem fit. Yasuda explained,
“We wanted to emphasize freedom and to allow players to approach and engage scenarios in multiple different ways.”
With this aim in mind, it’s no wonder that Yasuda chose to play AC and RDR. Both the series offer multiple award-winning titles that manage to walk the tight rope between exploration and focused combat/ stealth.
The influence of Assassin’s Creed on Rise of the Ronin is quite apparent. Many have pointed out various similarities, some even calling Ronin ‘worse Assassin’s Creed‘. Some reviewers have suggested that while Rise of the Ronin is impressive in its own accord, it features some run-of-the-mill ‘open-world’ features that gamers have been seeing for the past few years.
