Team Ninja has been making games for a long, long time, starting all the way back in 1995. The studio's initial claim to fame came by way of the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden games, but in recent years, the studio has enjoyed much success thanks to action RPGs like Nioh and Nioh 2.
But what's next for Team Ninja? Nioh 3? And what's Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty all about, and how about Rise of the Ronin? Luckily, in this article, we'll explain everything you need to know about Team Ninja: Nioh 3, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, and Rise of the Ronin.
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Is Nioh 3 Coming?
The short answer is, unfortunately, no, but the longer answer is maybe eventually. Team Ninja has gone on record to say that the studio isn't working on Nioh 3 right now, and instead, they're working on a number of other games. Some of those games are likely to scratch the same itch as Nioh, which we'll get into below, but Nioh 3 isn't in development.
But, well, Team Ninja might do Nioh 3 in the future. According to an interview with the lead of the Nioh franchise back in 2021, the team is definitely open to making more Nioh games in the future, but the team wants to branch out, make a few other titles, and then (possibly) return to the franchise later on to leverage the things they learned and make an even better Nioh game.
Of course, this news will likely disappoint the die-hard Nioh fans out there, but the good news (outside of the franchise not actually being dead) is that Team Ninja's next two games, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and Rise of the Ronin, both look to be sharing quite a lot of DNA with the Nioh games. Of course, it won't be the same, but hardcore action RPGs with a high skill-ceiling set in ancient Asian lands is a relatively narrow niche.
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All of this, though, begs the question: If we're not going to see another Nioh game from Team Ninja in the near future, what's coming, and will it be a rehash of the studio's success with Nioh or an all-new experience that builds off of what made Nioh great and becomes something else entirely, like the way Nioh built off the success of Dark Souls.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty: Chinese Nioh?
Team Ninja's next game is Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, and if you're hoping for an experience that's very Nioh-esque, well, you won't be disappointed with Wo Long. But, more importantly, Wo Long isn't just going to be a Nioh clone, as it's shaking up Team Ninjas action RPG formula to its core.
To put it simply, Wo Long looks to be to Nioh what Bloodborne was to Dark Souls. Wo Long is very much an action RPG in terms of what you'd expect from the Nioh developers, so you can expect loot, character customization, leveling up, etcetera, but like a Bloodborne or Sekiro you'll also be able to expect faster-paced combat with a heavier reliance on parrying as well as tons of mobility, including a long since sought after jump button.
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While Sekiro was quite a departure for FromSoftware, considering it's not an RPG at all but instead an action-adventure game, Wo Long looks to be less of a departure in terms of core genre and more of a major upgrade in terms of combat intensity and how fast-paced the action really is moment-to-moment.
Plus, Wo Long is finally leaving Japan behind. Of course, ancient Japan is a fantastic setting for video games, but because of that, it's become an especially familiar environment for video games and movies alike. Wo Long, however, is set in ancient China and focuses on Chinese mythology and martial arts, which feels like a nice change of pace that won't feel too foreign.
The biggest departure from Nioh with Wo Long has to be in its mobility, though. In both Nioh games, you couldn't jump, and you weren't ever really doing anything vertically. Much like all the FromSoftware games before Sekiro and Elden Ring, you were largely just going to be on the ground. Wo Long is changing that up by adding not just jumping but a whole slew of verticality to the game, which will undoubtedly change up the core gameplay loop.
What's more is that Wo Long comes out this March, so you won't have to wait long to get your hands on Team Ninja's next action RPG. But what else is coming besides Wo Long?
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Rise of the Ronin: Team Ninja's Version of Ghost of Tsushima?
Rise of the Ronin is Team Ninja's next game after Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. Right now, it's expected in 2024, but what's relatively unique about Rise of the Ronin is that it's a PlayStation 5 exclusive, the first PS5 exclusive from Team Ninja.
In fact, it's also the first exclusive from Team Ninja at all in quite some time. Nioh, back in 2017, started off as a PlayStation exclusive, but it eventually came to PC, while Nioh 2 came to both PlayStation and PC. Wo Long will be the first Nioh-esque game to come to Xbox, but Rise of the Ronin will be locked to PlayStation 5.
We don't know much about the game just yet, although a trailer was recently released, but we do know that it's an open-world game (the first of its kind for Team Ninja's style of action RPG) set in 19th-century Japan. Of course, it's hard not to see some similarities between this and Ghost of Tsushima, another similar game with a similar setting, but there will likely be some major differences.
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For one, Ghost of Tsushima was an action-adventure game, not an RPG in any kind of traditional sense. Rise of the Ronin, on the other hand, styles itself as an open-world action RPG, and RPG courtesy of Team Ninja is likely to mean it'll be a fairly traditional RPG experience filled with numbers, stats, levels, and loot alongside acres of character customization.
Unfortunately, though, not much has been announced about the details of Rise of the Ronin, so we'll have to wait and see how this one develops. Though, to help tide you over until 2024, all you'll have to do is wait a few months for Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty.
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