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Sucker Punch Productions revealed more information and footage of their upcoming PlayStation exclusive, Ghost of Tsushima, during PlayStation’s latest State of Play on Thursday afternoon. The video was broken into different sections, explaining exploration, combat, customization, and additional gameplay modes.
Ghost of Tsushima comes out on PlayStation for on July 17, 2020.
Exploration
Open world exploration of Tsushima is one of the focal points of the game. The goal of traversal, according to the video, is to guide the player using immersive and thematic methods. Because of this, instead of using traditional waypoints and a mini-map, Ghost of Tsushima directs players where to go using the Guiding Wind feature.
While the map is open, you can select an area you’d like to travel to. Rather than showing you how to get there directly, however, your character follows bursts of wind that blow in the direction of your destination. At any time, you can call for another gust of wind to make sure you don’t lose the trail and keep on track.
Exploration in Ghost of Tsushima is heavily based on your environment. Smokestacks and frantic animals can indicate people who need help or side quests to uncover. Some species of birds will lead Jin, the protagonist, to secret locations, while foxes take him to hidden shrines across the island.
Once you’ve visited a location once, you unlock Fast Travel to that area, making it easier to travel quickly throughout Tsushima.
Combat
There are two distinct combat styles in Ghost of Tsushima: Samurai and Ghost. The Samurai fighting style is, of course, based on samurai movies. This type of combat seems to revolve around waiting for your opponent to attack instead of charging at them headfirst. Precision is necessary and every strike must count, especially when perfecting timing for parries. Additionally, there are multiple fighting stances that you can cycle through, each with their own advantages or disadvantages depending on what type of enemy you’re facing.
In contrast to Jin The Samurai is Jin The Ghost, a fighting style that focuses on stealth and assassination. This style involves using tricks to scare and distract your opponents, luring them to their death or distracting them so you can drop down on them from above. While fighting in this mode, you can use firecrackers and smoke bombs to distract your enemies and hide your attacks.
Customization
Like most modern open world games, there are various sets of armor available for Jin to wear, each with their own mechanical advantages. Which set of armor you should dress Jin in depends entirely on which combat style you prefer.
In addition, you can use charms to give you an edge in battle. You get to pick which techniques you develop and evolve throughout the game, based entirely on your preferred play style.
Not all customization is functional in-game, however. Across the island of Tsushima, you can find dye flowers that will let you change the color of your armor.
Gameplay Modes
Ghost of Tsushima will include an in-depth photo mode, in which you can customize the color grading, depth of field, Jin’s expression of emotion in the shot, wind direction, wind speed, and a variety of other visual features. If you’re recording a video, you can even pick which track of music from the game you’d like to be playing in the background.
The game will also feature a Japanese voice track with English subtitles for players that prefer a more authentic Japanese experience. The option to pick this voice track will be available to pick before the first scene starts.
The last mode mentioned in the series of reveals on Thursday was Samurai Cinema. Ghost of Tsushima is inspired heavily by older Samurai movies. As a result, the developers wanted players to feel like they were playing their favorite Samurai movie, leading to the inclusion of Samurai Cinema, a grainy black-and-white mode that mimics classic Samurai films. Just like the Japanese voice track, this mode will be available for players at the very beginning of the game.
