In preparation for the launch of Rise of the Ronin on March 22, 2024, Team Ninja has released Chapter 4 of the game’s behind-the-scenes titled “Rise as One”. In this episode, the studio’s game producer and director Fumihiko Yasuda narrated how the team expanded and pulled off their biggest open-world experience yet.
Yasuda mentioned that he conceived the idea for Rise of the Ronin seven years ago. However, he was still skeptical about what players would think of the game. Nevertheless, he hopes players will be able to play and enjoy it.
“I feel that Team Ninja has gained strength in its ability to deliver valuable experiences to players,” Yasuda said. “I honestly believe that many of those ideas and elements are now in the final game.”
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Team Ninja had to make adjustments to its team management as the size of Rise of the Ronin grew during development. Instead of having just one director for the entire game, they had directors for each key component of the game and the different directors met every day to synchronize their progress and maintain quality.
“As an open world, we reached a large scale of development where it would have been impossible for Yasuda to look into and follow up on every single detail of the game,” said UI and RPG director Takayuki Saga.
Having multiple directors is a strategy that not only helps to make sure that all the parts of the wheel are moving smoothly but also helps to bring innovation from the different directors into the game.
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“Prior to this game, I had worked as the sole director of Team Ninja, together with my team,” said Yasuda. “That framework didn’t radically change, but in assigning multiple directors, we made sure to communicate through regular meetings involving the larger team to maintain quality.”
Now that Rise of the Ronin is almost out of the door, Yasuda said, “I think we’re able to target bigger titles and even greater challenges in the future.”
Rise of the Ronin by Team Ninja is promising
The upcoming open-world action RPG from Team Ninja holds a lot of promise. Rise of the Ronin has been in development since 2015 and some of the game’s director recounted how their lives transformed during the game’s development.
“From a personal perspective, my child was born right about the time I joined the game’s development, said Saga. “He is three years old now which makes me realize the time we’ve spent on this project.”
Yasuda said they “grew to a really large team on Rise of the Ronin, going through a long development period”. The time invested in the project is evident in the character models’ quality, the open world’s size, and the dynamic gameplay—and hopefully will be a commercial success.
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Team Ninja equipped players with different combat options which included close battles with swords or taking down enemies from afar with guns. Likewise, players can transverse the large open world with a glider and grappling hook.
Rise of the Ronin was set in the mid-19th century Japan during Bakumatsu. The game was designed to relive the Boshin War between the Tokugawa Shogunate and various other anti-shogunate factions who had grown tired of the Western influence that led to the forced opening of Japan.
The game will allow players to swap between three levels of difficulties and will feature a co-op mode. Rise of the Ronin is a PS5 exclusive. Hopefully, Sony will consider creating a PC port for it sooner rather than later. Embedded below is the fourth chapter of the BTS series.
