Review: Ghost of Tsushima creates true serenity amidst its bloodshed

It has been 6 years since developer Sucker Punch’s last game. The studio is well-known for crafting stories of racoons that masquerade as thieves, superheroes torn apart by their own morals, and now with Ghost of Tsushima, samurai warriors who must reckon with their heritage.

It’s the 13th century. The Japanese island of Tsushima has fallen after a Mongol invasion, you fill the shoes of one of the last surviving samurai warriors, Jin Sakai. You stand alone, outnumbered and outmatched. It’s up to you to bring your people together and liberate your home.

The story of Ghost of Tsushima opens with a bang but then becomes quite dry for the first act. For me, it like a drag to play, the characters weren’t particularly engaging, and it felt like it was holding back on delivering everything it wanted to achieve. It goes through the motions but doesn’t feel too dissimilar from the lows of your average Assassin’s Creed game, tailing missions included.

Thankfully, the game’s pacing picks up significantly in the second act and catapults itself into a beautiful finale with the third act. Characters start to define themselves in the story and their side missions, the conflict becomes much richer, and Jin himself becomes a far more layered character. You see the sacrifices and consequences of the dedication to his vengeful quest against the Mongols, resulting in well-crafted emotional beats.

Jin’s overarching arc in Ghost of Tsushima follows his duality. As a child, Jin was raised to fight with honor. No cheap shots, no cowardly tactics. The way of the samurai is one of courage and nobility. Jin’s journey teaches him that there’s no way to fight this war without playing dirty and that too many lives will be lost if he leads everyone into battle head on.

Outnumbered, Jin’s backed into a corner and is confronted with who he must become to truly save Tsushima. This internal conflict is probably the richest element of the entire story, leading to a lot of truly heartbreaking, operatic moments.

These themes are translated into the swift and sleek gameplay of Ghost of Tsushima. There’s a notable advantage to going in stealthy and picking people off from the shadows at the cost of feeling this sense of shame. As you betray everything you know as a samurai in exchange for the more strategic approach of the “Ghost”, you’ll occasionally get glimpses at Jin’s uncle teaching him the way of the samurai when he was a child.

It seemed like this was both scripted to happen during key story moments but also peppered in with general gameplay to make it feel more dynamic. It was a really great choice but also doesn’t feel like Sucker Punch commits to it at the level it requires to be fully effective. Jin, no matter how you approach gameplay, has to become the Ghost.

It seems like Sucker Punch sets-up this idea of exploring Jin’s duality but doesn’t allow the player to have much input in that despite planting a seed for that. The story does eventually introduce a major choice that plays on these themes but it would’ve been nice to see more of these choices throughout the entire game.

As for the samurai approach, it’s masterfully executed. To me, I have never felt that games really capture the true danger of swordplay. In Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order, it feels like everyone takes way too many hits from a lightsaber (a weapon that slices through pretty much anything with ease). In Souls-esque games, everyone is absurdly strong and you’re insanely weak. Ghost of Tsushima changes that. Sucker Punch crafts a beautiful yet bloody experience that feels like the serrated edge of your blade could not just cut through butter or bamboo, but the flesh and strong armor of your toughest foes.

It creates a relatively even but equally deadly playing field for all. You will get cut down easily but it only takes a few well-placed strokes for you to make your opponent’s veins burst open and flood the fields with blood as well. It needs to be heavily stressed: This is not Sekiro or Dark Souls. This is very much Witcher-esque combat with lots of countering and parrying, it’s a game of patience and learning to strike efficiently.

You have various stances you have to change between that are more effective against specific enemy types, there are environmental traps to use to your advantage, and you have a wide array of gadgets at your disposal. I kept on envisioning Bruce Wayne training with the League of Shadows at the start of Batman Begins when playing the game. That fast, intense swordplay mixed in with things like smoke bombs for the sake of deception and theatricality. If you’re performing really well in combat, you can even cause your enemies to run away or fall over in terror, opening them up for an instant killing blow.

Everything about the sword play in Ghost of Tsushima comes down to one word: satisfying. It is deeply satisfying with its tactile feel, its gross (yet oddly fulfilling) sound effects, and other details that many other games really lack in this area.

Outside of its gameplay, Ghost of Tsushima’s biggest strength is the beauty in its presentation. Its world is lush and vivid despite being a largely empty island filled with destroyed villages, burning forests, and long-decayed corpses. All of the violence and bloodshed is strongly contrasted with this level of tranquility. Sucker Punch’s cinematic inspirations are abundantly clear, as intended, and somehow manages to capture a visual style of an incredibly well-shot film over the course of 20 – 30+ hours.

Every environment has this hand-crafted feel that looks like it was created by a world class painter. There are a number of set-piece duels in the game that place you and another fighter in these cinematic settings. It could be a field of violet flowers, on top of a beloved person’s resting place, or in a violent thunder storm where lightning strikes around you creating a ring of fire. Each one is increasingly incredible and makes for these truly epic photo ops.

I abused the hell out of the game’s photo mode, using up almost 30GBs on my PS4 just for photos and videos. It’s incredibly detailed, allowing you to change time of day, weather, particle effects, and more. You can even use it to create gifs or small videos. It has to be one of, if not the best photo mode I’ve ever seen in a console game. If you need any examples, every image you see in this review was captured by myself using the game’s photo mode on a PS4 Slim.

The Verdict

As the sun sets on the PS4, Sucker Punch has given the console a noble send-off with Ghost of Tsushima. Although it takes some time to feel engaged by its beautifully tragic narrative, its brutal yet eloquent gameplay and picture-esque world never fail to capture you.