Over 60 hours into Rise of the Ronin and I nonetheless haven’t found every little thing that Workforce Ninja’s newest open-world samurai journey sport has to supply. And now, outdoors of all of the cats to gather and fugitives to kill, there’s one other secret related to Nioh that I solely simply got here throughout. That’s proper: William Adams, the protagonist of Nioh, is lurking in Rise of the Ronin. Listed below are the small print, together with the place and tips on how to discover the “Blue-Eyed Samurai.”
On March 31, the PlayStation UK X/Twitter account revealed one thing I suspected was within the sport: William Adams, the protagonist of the primary Nioh and the primary non-Japanese samurai, is in Rise of the Ronin. Effectively, not precisely. Since Nioh takes place lots of of years earlier than the occasions of Rise of the Ronin, he’s referred to as the “Blue-Eyed Samurai” right here, paying homage to the superb Netflix anime with the very related title. Anyway, William—I imply, the Blue-Eyed Samurai—performs a small position right here, a mere sub-boss encounter as a part of the open-world images actions, however crossing swords with him may be very a lot definitely worth the effort.
You could find him within the Shiba Prefecture in Edo, which is the second main metropolis in Rise of the Ronin. Should you pop open your mini-map and head towards Shiba’s bay, you’ll discover a photograph goal referred to as “View of the Bay at Shiba.” You don’t have to finish this exercise, however snapping a fast pic of the waterfront provides you with silver cash to buy further Mind ability factors. Simply left of the place you’d take the image is slightly alcove with a dimly lit fireplace illuminating the doorway. Saunter in there.
The remainder of the best way is blocked by a poorly constructed wood barricade, which you’ll destroy by blowing up the fireplace barrel simply in entrance with both a bomb or a gun. When you’re inside, take the one left on the finish of the quick, slim pathway, and William—dammit, the Blue-Eyed Samurai—will probably be standing there, simply ready so that you can attempt him. And check out him you need to, as a result of this isn’t a kind of encounters the place there’s a little bit of dialogue earlier than the blades get inevitably soaked in blood. He aggros the second he spots you, however it’s not a very troublesome combat, particularly for those who’ve performed Nioh. His moveset is equivalent to the usual assault sample you see when wielding a katana in Workforce Ninja’s 2017 Japan-set Soulslike, in order that familiarity ought to make the combat simpler to handle. Anyway, go forward and lay him out.
After the combat, you’ll earn some fairly candy rewards. The primary is a set of armor themed round Yasuke, the primary Black samurai whose title is the title of one other glorious Netflix anime. Then there’s the true prize, the Nioh-ryu fight model. It’s the identical sword approach that the Blue-Eyed Samurai, and Nioh’s William Adams, use, and it’s nice. See, there are 4 overarching fight model sorts that the myriad fight kinds in Rise of the Ronin fall beneath: Ten, Chi, Jin, and Shinobi. Every of those 4 is powerful towards sure weapon sorts and weak towards others, however Jin is essentially the most well-rounded fight model of the bunch as a result of it’s efficient towards sabers and different light-weight weapons. The Nioh-ryu is a Jin-based fight model, which suggests, since most enemies in Rise of the Ronin use both katanas or sabers, you’ll basically at all times do extra injury. Certain, there are a handful of enemies that use different fight kinds which might successfully counter a Jin-based one, however even then, as a result of Jin is a jack-of-all-trades, it will probably nonetheless lower by means of even the heaviest of weaponry, equivalent to golf equipment and odachi.
I really like little particulars like this, non-compulsory targets that join a studio’s video games collectively in fascinating and fully missable methods for those who don’t know the place to look. The great factor about Rise of the Ronin is that for those who occur to overlook something within the sport, there’s a function that permits you to replay entire areas and whole missions for completely completely different outcomes. So, for those who needed to see what would occur for those who saved an anti-Shogunate official as an alternative of killing them, you would bend time to see what occurs. Sadly, when you murk the Blue-Eyed Samurai, he’s useless for good.