Team Ninja’s upcoming game, Rise of the Ronin won’t launch in South Korea. Rumours began to swirl online earlier this week that the open-world Samurai game had been cancelled in the country. Sony has now confirmed that is the case.
While Sony didn’t provide any specific details as to why the game was cancelled, all marketing material for Rise of the Ronin as well as the PlayStation Store listing have been removed in the region.
Fans began speculating the reason behind this cancellation. Many believe that it has something to do with the comments made by game director Fumuhiko Yusada during a recent behind-the-scenes video for Rise of the Ronin.
In the video, Yusada visits the city of Hagi and the Shoka Sonjuka School. The school was founded by the 19th-century scholar Shoin Yoshida, an influential scholar who thought many of the leading figures who participated in the Meiji Restoration – the movement which restored imperial rule in Japan.
In the video, Yusada compared Yoshida to Socrates saying:
“Although it was a different world in a different time, I believe he could be compared to Socrates, 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.”
While his comments might not be the way to describe the figure, the snippet also confirmed that Shoin Yoshida would appear in Rise of the Ronin.
Yoshida nurtured a number of political activists who made some major contributions to the Meiji Restoration. This essentially restored imperial rule in Japan in 1868. Yoshida was also an advocate for the conquest of Korea which led the region to be ruled by the Empire of Japan from 1910 to 1945.
Because of Yoshida’s ideologies and influence in Japan, he is viewed as a controversial figure in Korea. His inclusion in the upcoming Rise of the Ronin game has likely sparked the game’s cancellation in the region. Since the clip was shared, Korean audiences have criticised the game for including the figure.
Sony has yet to officially confirm the reason behind the game’s cancellation in South Korea. We don’t know if the company will share any updates. Regardless, Rise of the Ronin is set to launch exclusives on PS5 on 22 March.
