Ghost of Tsushima Gameplay Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur0pQblaZcE

This was on my radar previously mostly because most everything else was pushed back and I have a lot of free time in the summer, but this video sold me. Now I'm genuinely excited for it.

The exploration looks rewarding (and the ways they've come up with to make it more organic are clever), the physics look weighty, the combat looks amazing, I love the setting, and it looks and sounds great. No idea what the story will be like, and this video didn't show character progression, but there's clearly a tab for it, so I'm expecting an AC:Odyssey/Origins type skill tree.

Anyone else interested in this?

Definitely interested in the setting and gameplay mechanics. Sucker Punch also make fun games (Infamous).

My worry is that its a western developer making a Samurai game - this is like asking Steven Segal to make 13 Assassins (I know the horror)! Or it will be like Assassins Creed in Japan.

The masterpiece Sekiro set a very high bar from all aspects, so I am waiting to see on this one.

SpoonFULL said:

Definitely interested in the setting and gameplay mechanics. Sucker Punch also make fun games (Infamous).

My worry is that its a western developer making a Samurai game - this is like asking Steven Segal to make 13 Assassins (I know the horror)! Or it will be like Assassins Creed in Japan.

The masterpiece Sekiro set a very high bar from all aspects, so I am waiting to see on this one.

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Apparently they were dedicated enough to authenticity that they recorded bird song in Japan, among many other less trivial things. It also seems to have been in development for 6 years. I loved Sekiro when I wasn't hating it from dying over and over, but I think this will scratch a different itch.

Looks ultra-generic to me, but with a very pretty environment.

Everything seems a carbon copy of recent open world games - which, I suppose, is to be expected.

Some neat immersion features - albeit still saturated with gamey nonsense.

Still, I'm curious about it - and it will all depend on details. If the story is engaging and the pacing can keep me interested, it might work.

I'm also hoping for some kind of survival/challenge mode.

One reason I was so taken with Days Gone, for instance, was the survival mode - which forced me to actually travel and see the world. That's one aspect that I think can really help games that have made an effort to create a strong landscape.

I do despise the standard "question mark" type of exploration - but maybe there's a way to avoid it here.

Most importantly is how much diversity the game has in terms of the world, the character progression, the loot and so forth.

I can be very happy with generic blueprint games like this if they're handled well.

There definitely some elements we're used to in open world games, but "ultra generic" seems needlessly unkind. For one thing, there are dozens of games that use those elements, so expecting this game to reinvent the entire genre is unresonable.

And there are things in this brief video that don't look generic at all. I've never seen combat like this. Obviously I don't know what it feels like to do yet, but it looks like they captured the economy of motion, one or two sword strikes and you're dead feel of samurai films quite well. No rolling around, no hacking at any enemy for 5 minutes. The lack of quest pointers, instead using animals, the wind, etc is also novel.

I don't expect anything here. I'm just reacting to what I'm seeing.

This wasn't really on my radar - so I had no reason to expect much at all.

Yes, countless games feel ultra generic to me these days, including nearly every single Ubisoft title and something like Horizon Zero Dawn.

I realize I'm talking about very popular games that a lot of people seem to love - and that's cool.

I actually really like many of them as well.

But generic is generic - and I'm not into spinning stories about how (relatively) minor details make up something that's going to feel unique to me.

They're all very minor evolutions over a very, very similar formula - with small incremental steps up - and sometimes a few steps down.

But being ultra generic doesn't mean every single thing is identical to other games. It just means the overall design paradigm is nearly identical - and this certainly strikes me as that.

The melee combat animations being different doesn't change much at all for me. You have very similar mechanics in several Assassin's Creed games - where you're waiting for the right time to strike a single - or a few times. The fact that it's a samurai sword and a different animation is not what I would call revolutionary.

I think every single thing in that video that relates to stealth or archery is directly lifted from other games in the genre. Again, ultra generic.

I do appreciate their immersion features - though it's very clearly not going to be what some might expect. The fact that it's still the basic question mark exploration with a few twists won't cut it - and having something as simple as your weapons and tools being referred to as "Gear" just screams that they didn't go all the way giving this an authentic Samurai vibe.

Clearly, this is a western open worlder doing what so many, many others have done before - maybe slightly differently here and there.

If being honest in my impressions without kidding myself because I want it to be something it's clearly not - means I'm being unkind, then so be it.

Obviously, I could be wrong - and the distinctive parts of the game is what they didn't decide to demonstrate in this demonstration video.

The thing to take away from this, though, is that I'll probably enjoy it.

I don't think being generic or a blue-print design is necessarily a bad thing. It might even be a good thing - because something that's original isn't automatically good or better.

But it's going to feel very familiar - I will give you my personal guarentee on that.

I've never had any interest in Japanese culture, so this game doesn't do anything for me in that respect. I agree with Dart, that the vibes felt very Assassin's Creed to me, which is an okay thing. I prefer fantasy races and worlds, so that devs can't just steal from history. Develop your own!

I think this game has been in development hell. From what I hear it's been in development at Sucker Punch after they shipped the last Infamous game in 2014. So basically, 6 years. Which is about the time Naughty Dog spent on Last of Us 2. And the differences seem to be outstanding.

It does look a bit generic, but I could accept it. What's killing me is how dull the samurai combat looks. And I don't particularly blame them. I don't see how they could implement a realistic combat system, where basically it's one hit - one kill, but not have it annoying in that you constantly die, and still allow for a learning curve for the player.

The colour pallete also looks a bit bland, but still could live with that, if the combat were enticing. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice had a fantastic combat system, but that was also because it was from a developer with a strong pedrigree of good combat systems, and also it being a fantasy-japanese setting, which allowed them freedom to design a better system.

The way it's looking now, it will probably be something like the first Assassin's Creed games, where enemies will be coming one by one to you, and as long as you're in guard, the hero will parry and ripose any attack. Which will likely look good, but get old very fast.

Combat looks far too cinematic for my taste.
Slowmotion over slowmotion and the camera spinning around like crazy taking away control from the player after every button press

JFarrell71 said:

I've never seen combat like this. Obviously I don't know what it feels like to do yet, but it looks like they captured the economy of motion, one or two sword strikes and you're dead feel of samurai films quite well. No rolling around, no hacking at any enemy for 5 minutes.

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That's exactly what make me took interest in the game, the first combat looks directly taken from an old Zatoïchi movie, where everyone dies quickly..
I hope they stick to that style through the all game.

danutz_plusplus said:

The way it's looking now, it will probably be something like the first Assassin's Creed games, where enemies will be coming one by one to you, and as long as you're in guard, the hero will parry and ripose any attack. Which will likely look good, but get old very fast.

Click to expand...

Remains to be seen how much skill will be involved; if it's too easy, I'll get bored, and if it's punishing and plays out almost like a QTE where one wrong move gets me killed, I'll get frustrated. All I can see for now is that the samurai combat looks like a Lone Wolf and Cub/Zatoichi movie, which is what they're going for.

What we do know for sure is that you can't just sit in guard and auto-parry everything. The game director mentions timing in the voiceover. Personally, I'm usually pretty terrible at that if the window isn't big. I never parry in Dark Souls.

New gameplay video:

Playing it since release and enjoying it immensely. Really love the setting and gameplay is lots of fun. I might be like 1/3 in the game and seems I uncovered most rpg mechanics so Im kinda curious if it has enough hooks to keep me going till end of game. Its not RPG by any means really, but its well executed game. Strongly recommend it.