We had already noted this in our test: the technical part of the PS5 exclusive Rise of the Ronin is not its strong point. This is all the more obvious thanks to the master analysts at Digital Foundry.
With eyes as sharp as a katana, our colleagues at Eurogamer have studied in depth the technical proposal for Rise of the Ronin. And unfortunately for Team Ninja’s PS5 exclusive, the result doesn’t really deserve a haiku.
Rise of the Ronin, but not technical
It’s unfortunately a fact: Team Ninja is dragging around an aging engine. We saw the result in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, his previous title. However, it was a cross-platform game. With Rise of the Ronin, the studio had the opportunity to refine its formula on the one and only PS5. This was clearly not enough to provide in-depth optimization work, according to our opinion and Digital Foundry’s in-depth analysis.
Thus, this hybrid game straddling Nioh and Ghost of Tsushima is clearly not a technical benchmark. Fortunately, it can count on controlled gameplay of which Team Ninja has the secret. Two things, however, remain constant throughout our character’s adventure: an open world and a graphic coating that leaves something to be desired. With the exception of properly modeled faces and light/shadow effects, the rest isn’t really up to par for a next-gen game.
A game that doesn’t like 4K very much
This is notably to be attributed to a rather disturbing pop-in of the decorative elements, even just a few meters from our character. Textures also display a resolution that almost takes us back to the PS4 days. And the Ray Tracing and Quality graphics modes will unfortunately not fundamentally improve things. This is particularly obvious in large open areas, rendered in around 1080p. AMD’s FSR 2 upscales everything to 4K, but this causes some rather unsightly visual artifacts.
Despite aging technology, the title also struggles to maintain a constant framerate. In Quality and Ray Tracing mode, 30 FPS often coughs. And the low visual input does not really justify such a loss of fluidity. Performance mode is not much better off, however, struggling to maintain 60 FPS. To pay for this gain in fluidity, the overall rendering of the game is even less clear. Worse still, the cutscenes are, regardless of the mode, stuck at 30 FPS. A blow as the game tries to offer us an intriguing story, but somewhat marred by jerky animations. At most, Rise of the Ronin allows us to delve back into the history of Japan while waiting for a Ghost of Tsushima on PC that is much more technically solid.