Rise of the Ronin is the latest game by Team Ninja, the popular developers of titles like Nioh, Nioh 2, and the Ninja Gaiden series. They really did a great job combining the gameplay mechanics of the Dark Souls series and Ninja Gaiden with Nioh. Now, they are doing the same with Sekiro and Elden Ring. Their next game, Rise of the Ronin, combines the mechanics of these two abovementioned games.
This is a brand-new open-world game set in historical Japan where players fight a bunch of hard enemies and bosses to exact revenge. It’s already looking pretty good from the trailers, but for fans wondering how similar this game is to FromSofttware’s creation, the answer is hidden in its recently released gameplay mechanic.
It looks like Rise of the Ronin’s NPCs have a big similarity to FromSoftware’s Elden Ring
In Dark Souls, players meet a bunch of NPCs; one of them is Patches. He is just a harmless, bald guy who wants to help them. He points out a treasure in the ditch to the player, and when players try to take a look at it themselves, he kicks them into that ditch.
This guy then hopes players will die, and then he will take their valuables to sell away. But just as a main character often has a different fate, so do the gamers in this case. They brave the tunnels of that ditch and get back to him, and he instantly asks for forgiveness. Players can decide to let him leave or take him down.
If he is left alive, players would have a new vendor to buy stuff from. In some cases, such as Dark Souls 3, he would even assist players in boss fights. This is a pretty common thing for these games: players interact with NPCs, get to do some stuff for them, and then get rewarded.
In some cases, they even get a brand-new companion to fight those hard bosses with. This is how NPC interaction works in FromSoftware’s RPG; players end up getting great rewards and gaining a companion. This is what the game’s director said in an interview about it-
“So you have a lot of characters that you meet throughout the story that you can develop bonds with. And a lot of side quests are also tied to these historical figures. And they’re also the system for forming bonds with land and different locations. So, by helping out people in certain lands, you can deepen your bond with them. A lot of motivation for exploring the world is centered around these systems of bonds with characters and locations.”
Going with their inspiration, it looks like Rise of the Ronin’s developers have added a similar mechanic to their new title too. The game’s director, Fumihiko Yasuda, states in the same interview that players will be able to take full advantage of the bond system in this upcoming game.
Even if it is taken from a game made by FromSoftware, or inspired by it, this is still an interesting gameplay mechanic that needs to be explored a bit more and evolved. It is a good thing that Team Ninja has taken it upon themselves to do so.
This is a good initiative the developers have taken to encourage exploration in this game. Players can simply explore, find NPCs, and get a better experience out of their game.
This is an attempt by Team Ninja to change player behavior
Fumihiko Yasuda also said that he and his team have done a lot in Rise of the Ronin to try and change the player’s behavior. He said that players often go about killing anything that they see in games, but this new binding mechanic would make it possible for the fans to be more careful with whom they kill.
This might work in some ways, but it would be a big ask for players to not go around killing everything they see in a hostile world where everyone’s out to kill them.
