Ghost of Tsushima: Update on Directors Cut (with video)

Ghost of Tsushima

Just a month after The Last of Us: Part 2, Ghost of Tsushima is the next big PS4 exclusive game. The open-world action adventure from Infamous developer Sucker Punch is under double pressure. It shouldn't get lost in the ongoing hype about the second The Last of Us, and as the last big first-party game of this Playstation generation, you naturally expect the title to follow in the footsteps of previous exclusive hits like Horizon: Zero Dawn, Spider -Man, Uncharted 4 or God of War.

Reading tip: Ghost of Tsushima: Beginner's guide with tips on samurai adventures

In addition, it is due to the Covid-19 pandemic there were no preview opportunities for the press before the release and potential buyers were also unable to attract the title at trade fairs. So is the game under a bad star? Can't deliver the last big exclusive game of this era, of all things? Did we make you skeptical about Ghost of Tsushima (buy now € 69.99) with these lines? Hopefully not, because the title defies all adverse circumstances, delivers the usual high Sony quality, but is refreshingly different in terms of setting and gameplay. At the end of the day, Sucker Punch gives the old console another real highlight!

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Ghost of Tsushima in the test

Page 1 Ghost of Tsushima: The PS4-exclusive samurai adventure in the test 1.1 Against the horde 1.2 The ghost and the darkness 1.3 World of rewards 1.4 The ghost is about page 2 Ghost of Tsushima: The PS4-exclusive samurai adventure put to the test 2.1 The ways of the samurai 2.2 The determined warrior 2.3 Technology and criticisms 2.4 Opinion & evaluation Page 3 Ghost of Tsushima: Update on the Director's Cut 3.1 Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut 3.2 Upgrade and update 3.3 More Challenge 3.4 Ghosts of the Past Page 4 Image gallery for "Ghost of Tsushima: Update on Director's Cut (with video)" open

Against the Horde

The Mongols are numerically and technically superior to the Japanese. Source: PC Games Ghost of Tsushima is set in Japan in the year 1274 and we take on the role of the young samurai Lord Jin Sakai. After the death of his parents, Sakai was raised by his uncle Shimura, who ruled the small island of Tsushima as prince in the name of the shogun. There is still no easy lord life for our protagonist, because the Mongols start their invasion in Japan, and it starts on Tsushima of all places.

Jin, his uncle and about 80 other brave samurai face the Mongolian armed forces under the leadership of Khotan Khan, although they know that they have no chance against the huge army and should only slow down the invasion so that the troops have more time to form on Kyushu. The game starts right away with the battle on the beach and we experience a real bloodbath. The Japanese are not only numerically inferior to the invaders, the Mongols also use weapons such as Hwachas or black powder bombs.

Tips & Tricks PS4 0

Ghost of Tsushima: Finding all the hot springs - local tips

Find all hot springs in Ghost of Tsushima: Our map offers tips on the localities in the three island areas Izuhara, Toyotama and Kamiagata. var lstExcludedArticleTicker = '1353937,1354472'; The samurai around us are being mowed down and Jin too goes to the ground at some point in the midst of the corpses of his comrades. As if by a miracle, however, he survived his severe injuries and is nursed to health by the thief Yuna. From her, Jin learns that the Mongols have already taken half the island. But more importantly: Khotun Khan is holding Prince Shimura prisoner. With his father's katana and the honor of the samurai, Jin faces the khan to battle, but succumbs to it and barely escapes with his life. However, his uncle remains imprisoned.

Jin realizes that he cannot stand up to these opponents with the samurai's code of honor alone. He needs allies and a new strategy. But can he just drop the code for a short time and dishonorously fight the invaders? Does the end justify the means here? Jin is faced with a great moral dilemma, but an exciting, winding story unfolds for us, which convinces with many interesting characters and above all the great staged path of our inner torn hero.

Similar to the assassins from Assassin's Creed Jin Sakai also carries out assassinations from behind the scenes. Source: PC Games

The ghost and the darkness

Sucker Punch could have made it easy for himself and just told how the protagonist wants to save his home from the evil invaders. But the studio cleverly uses this as a premise to tell a very personal story about a warrior who only becomes a hero by renouncing his morals and perhaps even giving up himself. Jin Sakai's path is exciting until the very end, which is also due to the well-written supporting characters, who each influence Jin in their own way.

Khotan Khan is a cunning warlord who does not shy away from anything and thus an excellent antagonist who drives one with his atrocities to smash the Mongols. Prince Shimura, on the other hand, is the classic samurai. The shogun's word is law and a samurai may only behave according to the code. At the same time, however, he is also a father figure that Jin loves. The thief Yuna shows Jin methods in combat that he has never seen before and also did not think he would ever have to apply himself. Yuna seems cold at first, but there are good reasons why she behaves like this.

Tips & Tricks PS4 0

Ghost of Tsushima: Find all bamboo stalls - map with tips

In Ghost of Tsushima find all bamboo stands: Here you will find tips on all locations on the map of the game world and thus increase Jin's determination. var lstExcludedArticleTicker = '1353937,1354446'; Khotan Khan is a shrewd, ruthless warlord and therefore a really good antagonist. Source: PC Games We don't want to reveal too much here either, because it is incredibly interesting to get to know the secondary characters and slowly learn their backgrounds. The characters are part of the main quest, but they also have their own optional quest lines in which we can help them. The shrewd sake dealer Kenji, for example, always comes up with new things to deceive the Mongols, while the master archer Ishikawa wants to track down his former student who has opposed him and is now training the Mongols in his archery.

In these quests, too, Jin's moral compass is repeatedly put to the test. As in a GTA, there is a fixed group of characters who offer us quests. Some characters grow dear to our hearts, while others arouse our suspicion. The main story also benefits from these tasks, in which we learn more about the background of our allies. The helpers in Jin's fight for freedom are not just any NPCs to whom one has no connection, but characters with their own, understandable motivations.

The individual stories and backgrounds of the secondary characters are really interesting and nicely underpin the main story. Source: PC Games Of course, you don't only get quests from allies. On our journey across the island we repeatedly meet citizens who, as supposedly the last samurai tsushimas, beg us for help. Even these sometimes very short tasks often tell little stories, so that one is also motivated to complete these rather unimportant quests. If you concentrate on the main story alone, Ghost of Tsushima will be played through in about 20 hours, but if you also dedicate yourself to the optional quests and other side tasks, you can easily add the same playing time again. Rather even more.

Those who do things outside of the campaign also make life a lot easier, because everywhere you get small rewards that you can equip or with which you can upgrade yourself or your martial arts. Anyway, there is so much to discover on the island that you can't really help but be distracted and lose yourself in the beautiful, varied game world.

If we swipe up on the touchpad, it shows us the wind in which direction our mission goal is. Source: PC Games

World of Rewards

As with the story, Sucker Punch also took some creative liberties when designing the game world. While the real Tsushima is more evenly green, the virtual version has different climate zones, forests, mountain regions or swamps. The PS4 Tsushima is sometimes rainy, brown and muddy, sometimes it blooms in the most beautiful colors. The different areas are visually wonderfully varied, but the transitions are fluid, so that the game world feels believable and organic at all times.

This also helps that we can set waypoints, but then not on a mini Map the path is shown. Instead, we let nature guide us. If we swipe up on the touchpad, the wind sweeps the area and shows us where to ride. As we approach the goal, a marker shows us exactly where we should go or whom we should address. This feature works very well and fits in well with the story that the island is defending itself with all its might against the invaders. In general, the wind is of course also interesting in a historical context, after all, the kamikaze, the divine wind, actually ensured that the Mongol invasion was stopped back then.

Jin's closeness to nature goes even further. The map of the game world is largely covered by fog, which only clears when we are in the respective area. However, little golden birds keep drawing our attention to interesting things in the area. For example, they take us to hot springs where we expand our health bar, or to places where we write haikus to get new headgear.

We train at bamboo stands to gain more determination. Source: PC Games There are also bamboo stands where we can increase our determination (more on that later), or there are burrows. There we meet (who would have thought?) A fox who leads us to an Inari shrine. If we pray before, we will get new places for talismans. Talismans we receive in addition to experience points when completing quests and they give us various offensive or defensive bonuses.

The mountain shrines represent a completely different form of reward. The paths to the holy places were destroyed by the Mongols, so that we have to find a new way to the summit. For this we go on playful, very simple, but grandiose-looking climbing tours. If we pray at the shrine we also receive a special talisman, but the real reward is the mostly beautiful view of the island. Bandits or aggressive wild animals, with whose furs we can expand ammunition bags. In addition, there are of course all kinds of camps and forts of the Mongols that have to be conquered or destroyed. If we kill enough Mongol leaders in camps, we unlock a new fighting stance (more on that in a moment).

Bathing in hot springs slightly increases our maximum health. Source: PC Games As if that weren't enough activities, in some places you will find particularly difficult opponents who challenge you to a duel, and there are several treasure hunts in the game. There are musicians everywhere in Tsushima, telling legends of special weapons, armor and fighting techniques. If we put the clues together correctly, we get those legendary objects, some of which offer very special bonuses.

Tsushima may not be the largest open world, but the island is ingeniously designed, offers visual variety and numerous side tasks, all of which earn useful rewards. Since the activities are not just dots on the map, we never got the feeling of just doing a to-do list. Rather, they look great integrated into the world and we enjoyed the noticeable progress, as our Jin benefited from every solved secondary task.

The duels in the game often function as boss fights and are gripping and ingeniously staged. Source: PC Games

The ghost is about

When it comes to the quest design, Ghost of Tsushima is not particularly innovative, but rather offers standard food. It could best be compared to the Assassin's Creed series here. Most of the time we have to penetrate a hostile area in order to free hostages there, to obtain certain objects or simply to send all opponents across the Jordan. In some missions we have to remain undiscovered, but in the vast majority of cases we can choose whether to proceed sneakily or openly and honorably face the Mongols in battle.

For both methods we receive more and more gadgets and during the course of the game Skills. For example, we can distract opponents with fireworks, lure them into a certain corner with wind bells or we can learn to chain secret assassinations. We even have two bows at hand, are allowed to throw smoke and sticky bombs or, like Ubisoft's assassin, can carry out jump assassinations from an elevated position.

We can ignite dry grass with incendiary arrows to burn opponents. Source: PC Games However, it is particularly satisfactory when you use the environment to bring the Mongolians around the corner. For example, we can shoot an arrow at a wasp's nest, break fire bowls when enemies are under it, or simply shoot an incendiary arrow into the dry grass through which a patrol is currently moving. We haven't mentioned all of the gadgets and removal options here by a long way. The game always gives us new tools to fight invaders from behind the scenes. As a result, the mostly uniform missions never get boring.

That may sound a lot like Assassin's Creed in Japan, but there are also some differences. Ghost of Tsushima not only offers a much better narrative with interesting characters, but also a much stronger staging. There are always real highlight missions in which we storm a castle, for example. But we really don't want to say more here. Ghost of Tsushima actually offers some surprises and of course we don't want to ruin them for you.