10 Secret Open-World Bosses Everyone Missed
3. Blue-Eyed Samurai (Rise of the Rōnin)
Many of the most rewarding open-world experiences earn their stripes by encouraging adventurers to uncover cleverly hidden in-game references and secrets. Only a handful of them contain nods to other titles that may or may not imply shared universes, though.
The Blue-Eyed Samurai in 2024's Rise of the Ronin is one of the best cases of such a shrewd tactic in recent years, as he’s nonother than William Adams (the main character of Team Ninja’s 2017 megahit, Nioh).
Rather than help with the journey, however, the Blue-Eyed Samurai is a well-concealed optional boss who resides within a cave in the Shiba region (one of over a dozen tiny areas that comprise Edo).
His obscurity is compounded further by the necessity of getting to the View of the Bay at Shiba photo opportunity (close to where the Veiled Edge Banner is at Satsuma Clan Estate) beforehand. It’s little wonder, then, why plenty of people are completely oblivious to where Adams is (if not his existence in the first place).
Gratefully, killing him isn’t particularly difficult since he basically uses his moves from Nioh. Plus, doing so yields both a Yasuke amor set and the Nioh-ryu fighting style.