How 'Rise Of The Ronin' tackles historical accuracy in 19th century Japan

Speaking to NME, Rise Of The Ronin producer Yosuke Hayashi and director Fumihiko Yasuda have explained why Team Ninja set its open-world samurai game in 19th century Japan.

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Rise Of The Ronin is based on real historical events, and takes place in 1860’s Japan during a violent period known as Bakumatsu. Here, the country’s ruling shogunate made concessions to let western countries enter Japan, while revolutionary samurai fought to expel them.

On choosing to set Rise Of The Ronin at this point in time, Hayashi explained that it suited the “great sense of choice and freedom” that Team Ninja wanted to give players.

“The Bakumatsu period was a period of dynamic change,” he shared. “It was the end of the age of samurai, and the start of Japan’s modernisation. We believed that just by placing the player in that setting, it would allow them to experience the concept we were going for.”

Additionally, casting the player as a wandering ronin – a samurai without a master – meant Rise Of The Ronin could explore both sides of the era’s conflict.

“The protagonist doesn’t have their own particular set of convictions,” said Yasuda.  “We wanted the player to choose who to align with. During the Bakumatsu period, there were pro shogunate and anti shogunate [forces]. It wasn’t black and white – there wasn’t one good side, or one bad side. We really wanted to portray the dynamic elements between the different factions at play.”

On keeping the game historically accurate, Yatsuda revealed it was a simpler task than the studio’s past games, including 2020’s Nioh 2, which was set in the late 16th century. This was because more architecture and documents from the Bakumatsu era are still around, which made it “much easier” to find references for Rise Of The Ronin.

However, Yatsuda was “conscious” that Rise Of The Ronin could feel far-fetched if combat was too unrealistic.

“We wanted to create a grounded game and incorporate action elements into that,” he explained. “Of course if we only focused on action and seeing what we could do with that, it could get pretty wild and disrupt that sense of immersion. So we were always conscious to keep it grounded in terms of the animations and actions of characters.”

“The combat system in Rise Of The Ronin is kind of a culmination of our own ambitions in terms of what we wanted to take on next in a game,” he added.

Rise Of The Ronin launched last week (March 22), and you can check out our four-star review here.