Ghost of Tsushima [PS4], Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut [PS4, PS5]

- But all the previous stuff in the name of immersion is rendered useless by the presence of a traditionnal videogame map in the menu. Most people are always going to use the map in order to reach a destination, well, they'll have to constantly hit an annoying paused menu for that, killing the immersion in the big and breathless world.
I hope they have a HUD-less option. About the map though, it doesn't look like it's that critical and needed all the time. They seem to have reduced the need to pop the map if there's always immersion-friendly visual cues about where to go next.

Or they can just put a trophy for finishing the game without the map, or a hard difficulty mode or something.

Trophy earned!
(Y) "Where we're going, we don't need maps... we need wind and foxes"
 
I hope they have a HUD-less option. About the map though, it doesn't look like it's that critical and needed all the time. They seem to have reduced the need to pop the map if there's always immersion-friendly visual cues about where to go next.

Or they can just put a trophy for finishing the game without the map, or a hard difficulty mode or something.

Trophy earned!
(Y) "Where we're going, we don't need maps... we need wind and foxes"
Yes, I thought that at first, but then they should have had the gut to remove the map entirely. It's why I love games like Bloodborne. The world is so detailed and distinctive that you often don't need the map, and it enhances exploration, and you can actually get lost, but it's usually fun that way.

In my experience, when open world games have a Ubisoft type of map, exploration is not interesting and the game interest must be elsewhere like: fun gameplay (Infamous), fun systems (Far Cry) or fun combats (Horizon Zero dawn).

But here they highlight the importance of exploration with original exploration systems...but spoil that with a Ubisoft map. But maybe I worry too much.
 
I am very impressed with the game. Overall graphics quality and presentation is really great. Also I love nuances, like every enemy is reacting independently (fear, hesitation, aggression, etc.) or plenty of additional animations during the fight (looking sideways, tripping and many more). It is so different from usual approach from AC series, Witcher or even RDR where enemies are just attacking you and if they are running away, they are because it is scripted not contextual. I hope that gameplay will be as good as it looks.
As for animation , it's not naughty dog level but it is still very good.
Samurai game in Akiro Kurosawa aesthetic for the first time in history, without typical Japanese anime quirks. I am in.
Day 1.
 
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- But all the previous stuff in the name of immersion is rendered useless by the presence of a traditionnal videogame map in the menu. Most people are always going to use the map in order to reach a destination, well, they'll have to constantly hit an annoying paused menu for that, killing the immersion in the big and breathless world.

They've not said anything about needing the map, they said right at the start that you can use the wind to indicate the direction of your goal and other natural visual indicators. If you don't want to use the map, don't use it. But there is no way I'm blundering around a massive open world without an in-game map. It would be an insane omission and I can't think of any open world that's done this for a long time.

Maybe I misunderstand you, but how does somebody else using the map you are ignoring spoil your enjoyment of the game?

Not all the destinations are on the map to begin with unless I misunderstood what they said?
No, somebody likened it to the Witcher where when you are near to something a ? will appear on the map. If you look at where they show the map - 1:40 in - the map appears pretty spartan unless say a Ubisoft open world where the map is a cluster of icons. It looks like the map mostly shows topography, landmarks and settlements. I got the sense that it's there for people who want it, everybody else can use eyeballs and the wind to find things.
 
textures are lower res than some other games, but foliage density is higher than RDR2 for sure, and it's rendered very far from the player, it suits very well the setting and art direction they've taken. I guess that takes a lot of ressources, so they add to simplify characters animations.
clothes animations are very good though.
 
textures are lower res than some other games, but foliage density is higher than RDR2 for sure, and it's rendered very far from the player, it suits very well the setting and art direction they've taken. I guess that takes a lot of ressources, so they add to simplify characters animations.
clothes animations are very good though.
Not only is the foliage density way higher, you get tons of individual leaves blowing in the wind either from falling off the branches or stacked up on the ground. It makes the environment much more organic and lively.
 
Yep. It does show a little bit that this gen can render plenty of geometry but in order to save resources it needs a lot of duplication. So if that bottleneck is somehow removed next gen that would be great ...
 
Yep. It does show a little bit that this gen can render plenty of geometry but in order to save resources it needs a lot of duplication. So if that bottleneck is somehow removed next gen that would be great ...

Surely the fast SSD means exactly that?
 
I certainly hope so! It is of course also possible that there are other constraints like calculating the wind animation etc. But I reckon that can be done for quite a few more objects and then just reapplied. Certainly there’s a lot more CPU power to spare next gen as well.
 
Kind of funny how John said he likes the world because it seems interesting, and he hopes it won't be padded with useless missions, and at the same time he loved Death Stranding...anyway, nice video from them, as usual. They didn't comment on some stiff animations, or weird ones, but they seem impressed overall.
 
Kind of funny how John said he likes the world because it seems interesting, and he hopes it won't be padded with useless missions, and at the same time he loved Death Stranding...anyway, nice video from them, as usual. They didn't comment on some stiff animations, or weird ones, but they seem impressed overall.

It's strange how games can work like that sometimes (any medium, really.)

I don't generally like survival games, but I quite like No Man's Sky and I absolutely love Subnautica.
 
Kind of funny how John said he likes the world because it seems interesting, and he hopes it won't be padded with useless missions, and at the same time he loved Death Stranding...anyway, nice video from them, as usual. They didn't comment on some stiff animations, or weird ones, but they seem impressed overall.
I'm hoping they've taken a leaf out of Infamous's book here. There were a bunch of side quests, that rewarded you in different ways, but which were entirely optional. Infamous had good and bad power trees and Ghosts has Samurai and Ghost play styles so I wouldn't be wholly be surprised to find that there are side missions to accrue whatever in-game levelling currency is used to unlock new abilities. At long as it doesn't get Ubisoft-insane, here some horse-racing challenges, and some acrobatic challenges, and some kill streak challenges, and some don't-be-detected challenges and some ancient-sword fragment challenges and some ghost horse challenges and some.. ad infinitum.
 
  • Julien chieze was able to speak with Jason Connell, Creative Director on Ghost of Tsushima:
  • Zelda and Shadow of Colosus was a big inspiration for this game especially for artistic direction, he wanted the colors to be vibrant as possible.
  • The wind is the main way to navigate the game world, there are no markers. He wanted the game to be immersive as possible.
  • We can reduce the shine effect on the items that we can pick up. He made a comparison with Red Ded Redemption which is for him a good and beautiful game but for Ghost of Tsushima they wanted the game to be pleasant as possible to play without having too many superfluous animations which break the rhythm and that is why Jin can pick up items on his horse.
  • The instrument that we see Jin playing in the video will be the only one present in the game and Jason did not want to say what it would be used for.
  • We can hunt animals in the game but there is nothing to gain by doing it. Animals are mainly there to be more immersed in the universe and guiding you.
  • The Standoff mode can be activated anytime even in infiltration.
  • The little tennis balls are called the Jin Resolved Metter when we hit an enemy the bar will load and it will also be used for healing and there are also many other things related to this gauge but he did not want too get into the details.
  • There will be much more stances than the two that we saw in the video, it will be used to apprehend the different types of enemies.
  • The main weapon of the game will be and will remain the katana throughout the game but there will be many other weapons and gadgets. Weapons like the katana or the bow will be displayed on all the outfits of the game but not the smallest ones because there are a lot of outfits in the game and it would represent too much work.
  • If you wear heavy armor you will be less agile so it will make infiltration harder.
  • There are several ways to retrieve the outfits, either through the main story, by doing quests, by buying them in the villages or simply by exploring the world.
  • There are a lot of side stories in the game where you can build more or less strong relationships with different characters to learn more about their stories but it's up to the player's freedom and you can miss them.
  • The music is composed by Shigeru Umebayashi but the game having grown a lot, he realized that he could not do everything alone so they hired a second composer to work with Umebayashi and his name is Ilan Eshkeri.
 
the map appears pretty spartan

sparse ;)

I like the look and feel of the gameplay and thought it was visually very pretty. I haven't played AC since AC2 so this doesn't remind me of AC at all. I did wish they kept the Karma system but understand their explanation. I liked how as a Samurai you can choose your stance, which I take will be part of the upgrades you can put in your expansion slots. You can see him changing the stances while fighting the mongols. Very neat. I also like the armour system and take it as a Ghost you have less armour so can take more damage but you will be more agile and can evade attacks more easily. The world looked awesome, definitely something I could get lost in. I loved that you can do the Japanese voice over and that you can select to use the Japanese Cinema mode(Blank and white). I might actually do my first walkthrough with the Japanese Voice and B&W then a second in normal mode.

I did however see a few graphical/gameplay glitches. The Horses tail looked like flat plastic strips but the mane looks good, the water effects were off which you can see when he was in the water to the statue and when you walks on the water by a cave. Then there's the mud that doesn't splatter at the beginnig of the video when starting down the hill but just after that the mud splatter works at the bottom of the hill. The one mongol looked off for a sec or two before standing up correctly and a spear kinda appears from nowhere and goes flying while he is attacking the mongols as Ghost. Can't say I saw any other glitches. I hope they sort out these glitches by launch.
 
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