Sony has said Team Ninja's open-world samurai game Rise of the Ronin was never planned for release in South Korea following myriad reports claiming the game was cancelled due to developer controversy.
Speaking to IGN, Sony confirmed Rise of the Ronin will not release in South Korea but refuted various outlets that claimed it had been cancelled in the country, saying instead it was never planned to release there in the first place.
"Rise of the Ronin for PlayStation 5 was never officially announced for release in Korea," a Sony spokesperson said. "We can confirm that the title is not going to be sold or published in South Korea in any form, physical or digital."
Western media reported the game's South Korean launch had been cancelled earlier this week, citing South Korean news outlets. These reports were limited to blog and web portal Daum alongside forum website Ruliweb, however, neither of which presented concrete sources.
The latter suggested the game had been cancelled because the South Korean ratings board, the Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC), had rated Rise of the Ronin despite it not launching, but this situation isn't particularly rare. Mortal Kombat 11 for PlayStation 4 was similarly rated by the GRAC despite never launching in South Korea.
Claims Rise of the Ronin was removed from the PlayStation Store are also unfounded. PlayStation Store tracking website Plat Prices has no listing for a South Korean version of Rise of the Ronin despite its tracking of Store pages even after a game has been removed. NBA 2K21 has been removed from the UK PlayStation Store, for example, but evidence of its existence is still available on Plat Prices.
There is some evidence to suggest a South Korean release was at one time planned, but Sony hasn't mentioned this version of the game for a long time. Some Asian versions of Rise of the Ronin, such as the one available on the Indonesian PlayStation Store, have Korean language support, for example, while the South Korean PlayStation Blog featured Rise of the Ronin upon its initial reveal in September 2022.
That page has since been deleted, however, and the South Korean PlayStation Blog hasn't published subsequent entries on Rise of the Ronin alongside the English PlayStation Blog.
Rumours surrounding its alleged cancellation emerged following comments made by Rise of the Ronin director Fumuhiko Yasuda, who praised the real life historical figure Shōin Yoshida in a behind the scenes video for PlayStation Japan (available above).
"Although it was a different world, and a different time, I believe he could be compared to [ancient Greek philosopher] Socrates," Yasuda said, per an official PlayStation translation. "I wanted to depict his teachings and his life from the moment I started working on Rise of the Ronin. He wasn't just a philosopher, he insisted on the importance of taking action."
Yoshida was a 19th century scholar who conceived a strategy to increase the country's military strength by conquering Korea and other nations, making his celebration a controversial subject today, particularly in South Korea. It was these comments that triggered the series of media reports surrounding Rise of the Ronin's cancellation.
He wasn't just a philosopher, he insisted on the importance of taking action.
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Coming from the studio behind Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, Nioh, and Dead or Alive, Rise of the Ronin is a combat focused open-world role-playing game that tells the story of an untethered samurai who travels Japan in the late 19th century — a tumultuous time of civil war as the Edo period came to a close.
A March 22, 2024 release date was announced at The Game Awards in December 2023 alongside a trailer that promised a dramatic story and lots of slick gameplay of players using katanas and firearms to overcome enemies, and parkour and gliders to traverse the world.
Coming exclusively to PS5, Rise of the Ronin received an extended look at Sony's January 2024 State of Play, and Team Ninja is sharing more and more of the game as its release date approaches, recently giving players a tour of its version of 1800s Japan.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
