The highly anticipated PC release of Team Ninja's samurai action RPG Rise of the Ronin is facing significant criticism just days before its launch. After nearly a year as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, the game is making its way to PC with troubling technical requirements and performance issues that continue KOEI TECMO's unfortunate trend of problematic PC ports.
Demanding System Requirements Raise Red Flags
Rise of the Ronin's system requirements have raised serious concerns among PC gamers. Even at the minimum specification level, players will need at least an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT paired with an Intel Core i5 10400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600. However, meeting these requirements only guarantees gameplay at the lowest graphical settings, 1080p resolution, and 30fps - with upscaling enabled. This is particularly problematic as the GTX 1060 doesn't even support DLSS, forcing players to rely on FSR or in-game resolution upscaling.
Rise of the Ronin System Requirements
Minimum Requirements:
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT
- CPU: Intel Core i5 10400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600
- Storage: 180GB SSD (required)
- Performance Target: 1080p/30fps at lowest settings with upscaling
Recommended Requirements:
- GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super or AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT
- CPU: Intel Core i5 10600K or AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
- Storage: 180GB NVMe SSD
- Performance Target: 1080p/60fps at standard settings with upscaling
Massive Storage Demands
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the PC port is its enormous storage requirement. The game demands a staggering 180GB of storage space with an SSD explicitly required - not recommended, but required. The recommended specifications go even further, specifying an NVMe drive, with the Steam store page warning that poor SSD performance may affect gameplay. This places Rise of the Ronin among the most storage-hungry PC games available, rivaling titles like God of War: Ragnarok (190GB) and DCS World (200GB).
Performance Issues Persist Even on High-End Hardware
Testing on top-tier hardware has revealed deeply concerning performance problems. Even on a system equipped with AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D processor and Nvidia's flagship GeForce RTX 5090 graphics card, the game struggles to maintain acceptable performance. At 4K resolution with maximum settings and NVIDIA's DLAA plus Frame Generation enabled, the game averages just 64 frames per second while exploring the city of Yokohama. Worse yet, frame time analysis shows that over 14% of gameplay suffers from noticeable stuttering.
Performance Testing Results
Test System:
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090
- Settings: 4K resolution, maximum settings, DLAA + Frame Generation
Results:
- Average FPS: 64 frames per second
- Stuttering: 14% of frame time spent under stuttering conditions
- Installation Size: 151.6GB
Visual Quality Doesn't Justify Technical Shortcomings
Despite its enormous storage footprint and demanding requirements, Rise of the Ronin fails to deliver visually impressive results. While it does look better than previous KOEI TECMO titles, the visual quality doesn't justify the technical compromises. Even with DLAA enabled, players report persistent issues with shimmering and aliasing - problems that have plagued previous Team Ninja titles like Nioh and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Many game assets appear to be in very low resolution despite the massive installation size.
A Pattern of Problematic PC Ports
This release continues a concerning pattern for KOEI TECMO and Team Ninja. The developer's proprietary Katana Engine, previously used in titles like Dynasty Warriors 9, Wild Hearts, and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, has consistently delivered subpar technical performance on PC. Some critics suggest that the studio would benefit from switching to more established technology like Unreal Engine, which they've used successfully for the Ninja Gaiden 2 Black remaster.
Modern Features Can't Compensate for Core Issues
On paper, Rise of the Ronin does support modern PC gaming features including DualSense controller Adaptive Triggers support, HDR, various upscaling technologies (DLSS, FSR 3, XeSS), frame generation, and limited ray tracing for reflections. The game also includes welcome quality-of-life options like the ability to disable vignette and chromatic aberration effects. However, these features cannot compensate for the fundamental performance issues plaguing the experience.
Outlook for PC Players
With the game launching in just five days, PC players hoping to experience this samurai action RPG should approach with caution. Based on KOEI TECMO's track record with post-launch support, significant performance improvements may not materialize. While NVIDIA could potentially whitelist the game for Override capabilities to leverage the latest DLSS transformer model and Multi Frame Generation on RTX 50 series cards, this would merely be a brute force solution to more fundamental optimization problems.