After a year of PS5 exclusivity, a samurai RPG is now appearing on PC. However, the first reviews from players on Steam are shockingly poor – mainly due to performance issues.
Which game are we talking about? It’s about Rise of the Ronin, the action RPG from developer Team Ninja, the creators of Nioh and Ninja Gaiden. The game was already released on March 22, 2024, for the PS5, and the release on Steam followed on March 11, 2025.
You can watch a trailer for the game here:
How bad are the reviews on Steam? Despite the game receiving a fairly positive response at its release on PS5, the current reviews on Steam are very poor.
The GamePro gave 81/100 points in their review at the time, while on Metacritic, the PS5 version of the game has a metascore of 76. The current release has a significantly worse sentiment: Only 46% of nearly 1,000 reviews on Steam are positive.
Poor performance ruins the Steam release for many
What is the problem with the PC version? The poor performance of the game on PC is by far the most criticized aspect.
- User TheJackyking writes on Steam: “Is it really that hard to make a decent PC port? Stuttering on a 4090 is just … no.” His review is the first one that people will encounter.
- symsol writes in his review on Steam: “It breaks my heart to say this, but I cannot recommend the game in its current state. The optimization is as bad as everyone claims.”
- MeePowoH would also like to leave a positive review on Steam but can’t: “I love Koei Tecmo and Team NINJA so much. But I really cannot recommend it. The combat gameplay is great as always, but the optimization … Please, Team NINJA, make it run properly!”
Particularly tragic is the fact that behind the poor performance lies a really good game. Many players are already praising the gameplay. The technical issues do not seem to affect everyone equally, as there appear to be differences depending on the system (and in the perception of what “poor performance” means).
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