Team Ninja’s engine takes to the open world, to mixed results.
To that end, fully open world streaming is incorporated into the engine plus ray-traced reflections.
Zooming out, all of this combines with a broad open-world design that recreates mid-19th century Japan.
On the plus side first: character models are often beautifully detailed.
We get high quality shadows, adjusting with the changing time of day to give a convincing day-night cycle.
That brings us to a few of the negatives.
Textures also use a low-grade anisotropic filtering setting, blurring surfaces at the typical viewing angle.
Many of the core building blocks of the world are precisely matched.
Instead, the graphics mode offers an upgrade to image quality, as it runs at a dynamic 1512p.
Reflections are also handled differently across modes.
There are performance differences too.
Next along is the graphics mode - easily the most taxing option of the trio.
Locking to 30fps provides a solid average frame-rate, but the uneven frame-pacing rather ruins the experience.
The final option then is the ray tracing mode.
The ray tracing mode is otherwise respectable.
Things fall down in cities though, where drops to the mid 40s are possible.
That’s the lowdown on Rise of the Ronin then.
The main frustration is that a perfect 60fps is out of reach.
Meanwhile, the graphics mode is the visual purist’s best option.
More often than not, it’s the linear missions and interiors that showcase the game’s tech better.
And the team’s pedigree here is truly clear to see.
