James Lynch 
Ghost of Tsushima was one of the stand-out games in this year’s Sony E3 conference. The gameplay video showed off some pretty unbelievable looking scenery, as well as great character design and, overall, presented a title that really captured its theme in a way that is hitherto unseen in this generation of consoles. That being said, there were some reservations about the way the game handled combat, drawing comparisons with games that have a low skill threshold in regards to fighting mechanics.
In a conversation with Gaming Bolt, the co-Founder of Sucker Punch Productions, who developed the game, had this to say on how they approached the all important, combative aspects of the game:
“If it were hack ‘n slash, [the live-demo player] wouldn’t be nervously practicing before every demo,” Zimmerman said. “It’s a brawler. It’s skill [based] in a bunch of different directions. The heart of the game is…[in the demo] you’ve seen three guys, getting into a fight with them, and knowing that you’re in danger, knowing that you have to be on top of your game fighting three guys. It’s really out of the ordinary if you think about it. You have lots of games where fighting one guy is hard, and then you have lots of games where fighting 20 guys is hard. But three ends up being an interesting number, it gives the game sort of a fresh feel.”
So there you have it. The promise of due reward for the most skilled players is one that will assuage the worries of the more hardcore amongst you. If this does turn out to be the case, and the game manages to retain its unique style, tone and feel that we saw at Sony’s E3 presentation, then we could be on to a winner with this one.
Ghost of Tsushima releases exclusively for the PlayStation 4 on an as yet unspecified date
