Is Rise of the Ronin Open World: Exploring Bakumatsu Japan

With its release just over the horizon, we examine whether Rise of the Ronin has an open world design.

Rise of the Ronin is Team Ninja’s latest Action Adventure RPG set to come out on March 22nd for the Sony PlayStation 5. This is their most ambitious project to date incorporating elements from all their past franchises and other popular titles of the generation.

While they have experience creating memorable games such as Nioh and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, this is their first time creating a truly open-world experience.

Set in the tumultuous Bakumatsu era in 19th-century Japan, players will don the role of a “masterless samurai” and play an active role in reshaping history. Your choices will matter and impact how the game’s story unfolds. Although we’ve seen many gameplay trailers so far, many elements remain under wraps.

If you had your eye on the game for a while, you’re not alone. We’ve been awaiting its arrival as well. So, while we’re both waiting, let’s take a closer look at the open world features that are showcased in Rise of the Ronin so far.

Is Rise of the Ronin an Open World Game

Rise of the Ronin is, in fact, going to be an open-world experience. The narrative is not set in stone, and the player’s choice will affect how the story progresses. On top of that, there will be several traversal options, two of which were showcased in the gameplay trailer released earlier.

[embedded content]

The first traversal option that players would get is the grappling hook. It’s pretty similar to what you saw in Sekiro, which allows you to scale buildings quickly. You can even use it in combat, pulling down enemies from their outposts to quickly eliminate them in stealth.

You also get a hand glider called Avicula to soar through the air. Using the Grappling Hook while gliding will let you zip to a nearby building or even give yourself a boost, much like what we saw in the Batman Arkham series.

Other than that, you also get a horse which leads us to believe that the world will be pretty big. There’s no official map size out yet, so it’s still just speculation. But in today’s generation, a huge open-world has become pretty common. What we’re waiting to see is what else will the devs come up with to keep us occupied.

The game’s open world will feature iconic Japanese cities that are true to the history books. Cities like Yokohama, Kyoto, and Edo are among the ones that are confirmed so far. You’ll also be travelling through beautiful rural landscapes that are created with painstaking detail that is loyal to the era.

That’s all the info we have at the moment. When the game releases on March 22nd, we’ll have more updates for you. We hope you’re just as excited as we are to explore the vast open world of Rise of the Ronin. Good luck!