Ghost of Tsushima is a 2020 action-adventure game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The player controls Jin Sakai, a samurai on a quest to protect Tsushima Island during the first Mongol invasion of Japan. Jin must choose between following the warrior code to fight honorably, or by using practical but dishonorable methods of repelling the Mongols with minimal casualties. The game features a large open world which can be explored either on foot or on horseback. When facing enemies, the player can choose to engage in a direct confrontation using Jin’s katana or to use stealth tactics to assassinate opponents. A multiplayer mode titled Ghost of Tsushima: Legends was released in October 2020 and made available separately in September 2021.

Sucker Punch began developing the game after the release of Infamous First Light in 2014, as the studio wanted to move on from the Infamous franchise to create a game with a heavy emphasis on melee combat. The studio collaborated with Japan Studio and visited Tsushima Island twice to ensure that the game was as culturally and historically authentic as possible. The team was heavily inspired by samurai cinema, particularly films directed by Akira Kurosawa, as well as the comic book series Usagi Yojimbo. The game’s landscape and minimalistic art style were influenced by Shadow of the Colossus, and locations in the game were designed to be “the perfect photographer’s dream”. While the in-game landmass is similar in shape to Tsushima Island, the team did not intend to create a one-to-one recreation. Ilan Eshkeri and Shigeru Umebayashi composed the game’s soundtrack.

Ghost of Tsushima is an action-adventure video game played from a third-person perspective. The player has a variety of gameplay options to reach objectives they are given. They can engage in a “standoff”, a direct confrontation with enemies using their katana, which can result in a series of fatal strikes against a number of different enemies. In combat, Jin can use different fighting stances to defeat specific types of enemies: “stone stance” for hostile swordsmen; “water stance” for shielded enemies; “wind stance” for spearmen; and “moon stance” for brutes. Eventually the player unlocks “ghost stance”, which makes Jin invincible and allows him to kill enemies with a single hit for a limited period of time. To activate ghost stance, players must kill a number of enemies without taking any damage or assassinate a Mongol leader. The player needs to stagger enemies or land a successful parry to break their defense before attacking to deplete their health. The player has access to bows, which can fire multiple types of arrows. At certain points in the game, Jin must duel against non-playable characters (NPCs) who act as bosses with unique offensive tactics and attack animations. The game’s highest difficulty is a more realistic mode in which the player and enemies do large amounts of damage to each other, with all non-boss fights ending in one or two successful attacks.

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