Rise of the Ronin has really hooked me. I don’t know what it is about it or if it is just that I was craving some open world slop, but it’s hitting all the right spots in my brain currently. I think the Team Ninja special sauce in the combat helps keep me interested - there is quite a lot of depth and opportunity to optimise and style on your enemies and it also feels very rewarding doing so. Getting into a fast flow where you’re constantly swapping styles and weapons to use martial art techniques while weaving in parries gets really frenetic and fun.

Overall for my tastes it feels like a better version of Ghost or Tsushima. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not arguing objectivity here. Tsushima looks better, has better presentation and is way better optimised. I’m just having more fun with Ronin than I did with Ghost.

It also helps to have some more charm and levity among the characters and writing instead of every single thing being delivered in a dour and serious monotone like in GoT.