Fumihiko Yasuda, director on Rise of the Ronin, is paying close attention to more platfroms that he can release his games on. Speaking to RPG Site, Yasuda noted that the Nintendo Switch has a “significant number” of players in Japan. To that end, he has said that he is paying close attention to how the Nintendo Switch 2 will change things.
“In terms of consoles, there has been a long-standing situation in Japan where there is a significant number of Switch players, and I am closely watching how this will change with the release of Switch 2,” said Yasuda.
He also noted that the games he has worked on with Koei Tecmo tend to have a big audience on the PS5. In more recent times, however, Japan has seen quite a rise in PC gamers as well.
“For games like the ones we create, there are many PS5 players, but I also feel that the number of PC players has significantly increased in Japan over the past few years,” he said.
After having originally been released on the PS5 back in 2024, Rise of the Ronin came to PC earlier this week. The PC version of the game saw a host of improvements over its PS5 predecessor, including support for PC-specific features like ultrawide display, and higher resolutions and frame rates. However, as we noted in our review, the port didn’t feel like it was all the way there. Check out our PC review of Rise of the Ronin for more details.
While even its PS5 release could be considered middling when it came to critical reception, Koei Tecmo had revealed back in June 2024 that its sales had already surpassed the Nioh franchise. Yasuda referred to Rise of the Ronin at the time as “the best-selling Koei Tecmo title so far.”
Before the original release of Rise of the Ronin, Yasuda had credited Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima with inspiring Team Ninja and Koei Tecmo to make the game. While Rise of the Ronin was going to be the studio’s first open world game, Ghost of Tsushima was one of the points of reference during development.
“Rise of the Ronin is our first open world game, and Ghost of Tsushima was one of the games we used as reference, and I personally enjoyed it,” Yasuda said. “I felt inspired by the fact that a game set in Japan had been researched to such an extent by the developers, and had also received high praise for aspects such as its combat system. At the same time, I wondered why we couldn’t release a game like Ghost of Tsushima back then. Ghost of Tsushima served as good encouragement for creating Rise of the Ronin.”
Rise of the Ronin is available on PC and PS5. Check out our review of the original release for more details. If you’re interested in playing it on the PC, you can check out the hardware requirements to run Rise of the Ronin. In the meantime, check out our thoughts on the Ghost of Tsushima vs. Rise of the Ronin debate.
