Sony XDEV Working with Team Ninja on Rise of the Ronin

Team Ninja only recently revealed its latest project, the massively open-world samurai adventure Rise of the Ronin. However, some new details on the sprawling Japanese action RPG are coming out that might make potential players even keener to give it a whirl when it releases.

As if the prestige of Team Ninja as a studio wasn’t enough, it’s now been revealed that the developers have brought further expertise on board for the Rise of the Ronin project. The team will be enlisting the services of UK-based PlayStation studio Sony XDEV to help them bring their vision of Bakumatsu-era Japan to life. Sony XDEV has a number of notable titles to its name, having worked with fellow first and third-party studios to develop PlayStation-exclusive games. These include Returnal developers Housemarque, Until Dawn‘s Supermassive Games, and Detroit: Become Human studio Quantic Dream, to name a few. Sony XDEV also worked with Quantic Dream on Heavy Rain, as well as working on a number of the LittleBigPlanet games.

It looks like this will be Sony XDEV’s first collaboration with Team Ninja, which has been working alongside PlayStation on the development of Rise of the Ronin for over seven years now. The game was announced during this month’s Sony State of Play, where a short reveal trailer gave viewers their first look at this epic Japanese saga. You can check it out right here to get a feel for the epic journey that lies ahead in Rise of the Ronin.

The game itself is planned to release as a PS5 exclusive, although it will also make its way to PC. The action takes place at the turn of the 19th century in Japan, at the end of the 300-year-long Edo era. Players will be stepping into the role of a “Ronin” character. These are free-roaming warriors who have the ability to make their own choices in a world filled with civil war and deadly diseases.

While it’s unclear yet the full extent of how the two studios will be working together, it’s clear that Rise of the Ronin has been a real labor of love for Team Ninja. After such a long development period already, it may be that the studio is enlisting additional support to polish and perfect the game’s complex and interesting-looking gameplay and combat systems ahead of its release in 2024.

Either way, it’s hard to argue that Rise of the Ronin certainly looks as though it could be an interesting competitor against the eventual release of Assassin’s Creed Codename Red, which was also recently revealed by Ubisoft. Edo-era Japan seems to be the next destination of choice for gaming adventures, so it’ll be exciting to see where Rise of the Ronin takes us when it does launch in a couple of years’ time.

Rise of the Ronin is planned for a 2024 release window. It’ll launch as a PS5 exclusive and will also be coming to PC.

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