Ghost of Tsushima Dev Promises "There's No Waypoint" To Follow
Sucker Punch wants you to feel like a samurai.
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One of the surprises during today's PlayStation Paris Games Week presentation was a new marquee title from Infamous developer Sucker Punch Productions. The teaser trailer showed a throwback to feudal Japan, where the player steps into the role of a samurai during the Mongol invasion of the Japanese island of Tsushima in 1274.
Very little information about the game was given during the trailer and presentation, but Sony has followed up with a brief interview with some of the project leads, diving into the impetus behind the title.
"When we were looking at our next project, we wanted to stay open-world because we're giving power to the player. We didn't want to walk away from that. We think it's integral to modern gaming that players are in charge," said Ghost of Tsushima creative director Nate Fox.
So Ghost of Tsushima is an open-world game, the distillation of internal pitches that eventually whittled down to one concept: the fantasy of becoming a samurai. As the "ghost" in the title suggests, the game will be an action-stealth experience. And Fox said all of the locations in the trailer are in-engine.
Part of buying into the fantasy of becoming a samurai is building the island of Tsushima. The team behind Ghost of Tsushima says there won't be waypoints driving you to the more interesting places on the island.
"I think player choice in this game will mean something very different than other games we've made in the past," explained art director Jason Connell. "We really want you to have the choice of, 'Hey, that cool bamboo forest over there, I really want to check it out. I want to head in that direction and I want to see what it is.' There's no waypoint. There's no thing that says 'Go here and look at this bamboo forest'. We just, hopefully, are presenting something that is beautiful and exotic, that's different than the current place you might be in. That'll come as a world choice. Where do I want to go?"
"In this game, we let you explore what it is to be a samurai in this enormous landscape of medieval Japan," said Fox. "And now it's just up to us to actually deliver this fantasy."
Ghost of Tsushima will be coming to PlayStation 4 eventually. One day.