What does a Vendetta do in Rise of the Ronin?

The Vendetta system in Rise of the Ronin triggers when you fall to an enemy in combat. You lose all the Karma you’ve built up and have to respawn at a nearby Veiled Banner to try again, but you can regain that lost Karma.

After respawning, you’ll have a Vendetta against the character who bested you in Rise of the Ronin, and you need to act quickly. If you fall again to that character, or any other enemy, all that Karma is lost. Vendettas will be familiar to anyone who’s played any FromSoftware game, like the Dark Souls series. Here’s exactly how they work.

How Vendettas work in Rise of the Ronin

When you have a Vendetta against an enemy in Rise of the Ronin, the next step is to land a Critical Hit against them or defeat them in combat. Upon doing so, any Karma you lost when you died immediately returns to your character. For many enemies, landing a Critical Hit is the easier objective. But, eliminating them achieves the same goal if they’re weak enough and you can sneak up on them.

More often than not, your Vendetta will be against a boss character. Boss battles are challenging encounters, and they have far more health than standard foes. Prepare to fall against them, but you can try again when you respawn at a nearby Veiled Banner. If you’re sneaky, you can bypass the smaller enemies and head straight to the boss. It works better in cooperate missions alongside other players.

You have a much better chance of landing a Critical Hit against a boss than outright eliminating them. You can only land a Critical Hit after you’ve exhausted their Ki meter. A character’s Ki meter slowly goes down when you land attacks against them, or you can land a Counterspark when they attempt to attack you.

Even if you’re defeated by an enemy a second time, as long as you resolve your Vendetta, none of your Karma disappears. I’ve had problematic boss fights where I fell many times in Rise of the Ronin, but by resolving my Vendetta, I didn’t lose any of my Karma.