The Samurai have been a subject of fascination for over a millennia. These legendary fighters were the guardians of Japan, until they were betrayed by both the emperor and the advancing world around them. In their heyday they were quite literally a law upon themselves, being the only citizens legally allowed to carry swords in public. While writing this review I have spent hours reading about the fascinating times in which these warriors lived and how their traditions carved a place in history.

Ghost of Tsushima is an open-world action game which, for a change, is based on actual events in a real place. The year is 1274 and a Mongol Fleet had decided Tsushima was next on their whistle-stop tour of conquering Japan. A number of just eighty samurai engaged what was reported to be an invading force of eight thousand strong as they landed on the beaches of Tsushima. This battle marks the opening sequence for our game and sets the stage for our young protagonist Jin Sakai.

Honour Among the Dead

The opening sequence is incredible to behold with the Mongol leader Khan, showing his brutal disdain for the Samurai code. As was tradition, a legendary warrior is sent forward to meet the horde and challenge their best warrior. Khan calmly walks up, throws a goblet of oil in his face and lights him up. The Samurai know they will almost certainly die, but their code dictates they must attack head-on: something Khan knows from doing his homework. Needless to say, the Samurai fight well but are all but wiped out, their leader captured and our hero is left for dead on the blood-soaked beach. 

You awake after being tended to by an unknown benefactor and what follows is the second part of the opening section of the game. In this tutorial of sorts, you get playable flashbacks which show the player how to attack, parry and dodge. These sections also help show some of Jin's tragic past and establish the relationship between him and his uncle: Lord Shimura. 

Gorillas in the Mist

From the very first scene the game is emphasising the point, that honour is everything to a samurai. The code they live their lives by is unbreakable and so Jin is faced with an existential crisis. This enemy knows his code and indeed, has used it against him and his samurai brothers. In one last attempt to save his people and leader, Jin approaches the Mongol leader head on demanding a duel. In his wounded state, his attempt is met with a brutal defeat and he is thrown to an almost certain death. Yet, Jin does not perish and it is here, in his most desperate moment, that he begins his journey to becoming the Ghost of Tsushima. 

The woman who saves Jin is a fighter and a thief, so as they escape together her methods of engagement immediately clash with his. Yuna survives by attacking from stealth and killing from behind, these acts are abhorrent to Jin's very being. However, very soon he starts to see that adapting is the only way he can defeat this powerful enemy and save his people. Sucker Punch delivers this in a way that shows parts of Jin's past and him learning the way of the samurai. This juxtaposition emphasises the pain it causes him to break these teachings and that these gorilla tactics are now his only path forward. 

The Weight of a Human Soul

The combat in Ghost of Tsushima is sublime. Jin is not a mindless flailing barbarian and his fighting abilities have been honed to perfection. Each movement is purposeful, fluid and strong like the waves lapping against the shore of the island. As attacks connect you can hear the catastrophic damage they are inflicting to flesh and bone. The last stroke comes with a finality as your opponent is grappling with the realisation they just died. They then crumple to the ground and Jin expertly flicks his sword clean before moving on. 

The katana sword is a curved, single-edged blade that was used by the Samurai. The sword was seen as an extension of themselves and said to be a vessel for a human soul: so it comes as no surprise that it does most of the talking when it comes to combat. Sucker Punch has kept things fairly simple compared to other games of this ilk, with a basic block and parry system that also uses light and heavy attacks. However, as you progress and learn new techniques, your options for swordplay become quite extensive.

When approaching combat, whether it be a lone group in the woods or an established military fort, you must decide how to engage. The basic choice is an open attack or approach from stealth. If you do opt for the former, you can also kick things off with a standoff. This option represents Iaijutsu, which is the discipline of drawing your sword and striking an opponent in one fluid motion. I didn't know this but the katana blade was curved with this exact technique in mind. Once in open combat, you must remain composed, parrying attacks, dodging incoming arrows and cleaving each adversary when the opportunity presents itself. A wise samurai will also use their environment to their advantage by exploding barrels, knocking down oil-filled braziers or even aggravating wild bees.

Way of the Samurai

As you progress from one encounter to the next, you start to gain technique points as well as unlocking new fighting stances. Each stance is better suited for a certain enemy type, Water Stance, for example, is great for dealing with shield users. You can drop points into a wide range of improvements, including stance moves and even enhancing your guiding wind to find specific types of locations. Some combat options are a simple increase in a certain ammo type, while others can give you a brand-new attack. New moves are delivered with the right combination of attacks and you will have to learn these if you hope to defeat the invading Mongols.

As you complete key missions, new options become available to you, starting with the assassination attack and the use of a half-bow. Other weapon options can be unlocked with technique points such as Kunai (small throwing knives), bombs and my favourite; wind chimes that distract enemies. Even a few hours into the game you will start to enjoy a whole range of options for whatever playstyle you adopt. 

As you mooch around each location there are a lot of resources to hoover up, from basic supplies to materials like leather and iron. These are then fed into a fairly elementary upgrade system where each weapon and piece of armour has various upgrade states. Every new version gives better performance and in the case of armour also upgrades the aesthetics. There are also plenty of other collectables out in the world and even some light treasure hunting to find legendary equipment

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In recent years we have seen a new trend from some developers attempting to use environmental cues to peak player interest. Even Ubisoft, the architects of cluttered game maps, have been trying this with games like Farcry 5. Sucker Punch has taken this concept to the next level, as it feels like the natural world around Jin is actively shepherding him to helpful locations. When you add a marker on the map the wind will blow in that direction and with a tap of a button will blow harder to make it clear which direction to go. You can also happen across golden birds that will lead you to items of interest and there is even a glowing firefly when near a secret. You can also spot a pillar of smoke on the distant horizon that can indicate there is something in that direction you may want to investigate. 

An Elementary Life

The life of the Samurai was not just about swordplay and dying with honour. They would live what most people would consider simple lives, yet they would master each element of their existence. This could be art (Nihonga), poetry (Haiku), fishing and so on. The developers over at Sucker Punch obviously wanted to show this side of the Samurai life by including a range of non-combat activities across each area. So as you move between hostile encounters, you can happen across some Samurai-themed pastimes.

You might spot a fox frolicking under a golden tree and if you manage to follow it, you will find a hidden shrine. Sometimes you will happen upon a hot spring where you can reflect on the troubles of the day. Early on you will also start to find a baboo training game where you have to input the right combination quickly. This is one challenge that is not made easier on mouse and keyboard! All of these activities are woven into the game world perfectly and also give vital rewards such as extra resolve slots and increased health which are indispensable for later success

While Jin can run faster than a spooked cat, he also gains his faithful mount early on which will stay with him throughout the game. The animation for the horses is exquisitely done and this provides a very satisfying way of traversing the island. Your horse will jump over things or down short drops which makes riding far less frustrating than other games with mounts. These being samurai horses they have been trained to answer their masters' call which is handy when you end up miles away. My only want would be a speed between trotting and a full gallop. If you are short on time there is also a fast travel system, but with a world this pretty I often just ride to my next goal while looking for my next screen capture.

Floats Like a Butterfly

One aspect of this game that did surprise me was how much verticality there is within moment-to-moment traversal. Most cliffs will have a handy set of rocks protruding in just the right places. If I'm honest, I'm not too keen on this predefined method of climbing and the speed Jin hops to each rock just seems too gamified. Indeed, it's one of the weaker parts of traversal in the Horizon games. Yet climbing in the rest of the game is surprisingly good. Jin can mantle pretty much anything he can reach which makes getting around feel much less finicky than some games. There are also individual animations for scurrying up and down sloped roofs. In fact, there are so many nice touches for slinking around camps such as going into the rafters, hopping through skylights or down into the crawl spaces. All this combined with the focus mode (making enemies visible) makes the stealth side of the game very enjoyable. 

Jin can jump, which is useful for rooftop surveillance or combat, but it does feel very floaty. Sometimes you will leap to a platform and the game won't know exactly where to put you, so Jin will kind of float in animation stasis until he lands. I actually remember this being a thing in Sucker Punch's prior game; Infamous Second Son. Once Jin acquires the grapple hook this unlocks a whole new side to getting around and a method of accessing previously blocked pathways.

Is it PC?

Ghost of Tsushima is one of the most beautiful games I've ever played. While textures and assets are decent enough, it is mostly how the game's visuals are this constantly shifting mosaic of colour that sets it apart. The wind is very much a key character in this dance of colour and brings much of the environment to life. Grass, bushes, flags, capes: all get pushed around by the boundless energy of the wind. If this wasn't enough there is also a superfluous cloud of falling leaves, filling the air with a gorgeous mess of guidance. The only ugly spot in the game is the water, while it can look good in some situations it mostly looks flat and featureless.  

The world has a naturally progressing day/night cycle and as the lighting transitions from night to early morning, we see a true spectacle of colour. The same can also be said for the early evening, with warm sunlight catching coastal buildings and casting rays of warmth into the cool forests. There has also been a decent effort to ground the world with various animals gadding around the woods, from wild deer to crabs side-scrolling across the beaches. Some beasts like bears can also be found tearing chunks out of banits and once dead you can use their pelts for upgrades (the bears that is!). 

So as we get more first-party Playstation games on PC, we see more justification to plug in a Dual Sense pad. There is no getting around it, even for a die-hard PC gamer like myself I have to concede; playing on a mouse means you don't get vibrations. The new dual sense controllers take vibration feedback to a whole new level, allowing you to sense subtle effects like materials, wind, water and of course combat. So while I do love the way Nixxes have implemented mouse and keyboard, like Death Stranding, there is a legitimate argument to opt for a dual sense to play this game on PC.

As I have come to expect now, when Nixxes are in charge of a PC port we can expect a stellar job. I will link the video from the wizards over at Digital Foundry, but needless to say Nixxes are fast becoming my favourite people in game development. The port runs incredibly well, even on lower-end systems. On my 3080ti at 1440p and with everything maxed out, I am getting 80-110 fps with the occasional drop down to 70. With features like FSR frame generation and DLSS 3.0 most gamers should be very happy with performance. The port is not perfect mind, with a few minor graphical issues such as the odd flickering texture. My biggest disappointment is that the PC version does not have any improved environmental texture work, which is the weakest aspect of the console version.

It is no surprise that this being a marquee Sony game, the sound quality bar is very high. Swords clashing, the sounds of your horse's hooves in the tall grass, distant waves lapping against the shore: it is all brought to life by an excellent effort on sound. I wanted to give a special mention to the voice actors and they all give outstanding performances, especially Daisuke Tsuji who provides the voice for Jin. I won't go into the late plot for the sake of spoilers but just know, that this well-told story gives the characters plenty of emotional range to play with. 

Self Sabotage 

There's only one thing worse than someone being a dick, that is when they have something you want. This chapter is a disclaimer that if you are wanting to play the multiplayer Legends mode, you will need to have and tether a PSN account to the Steam version. After the Helldivers 2 debacle, it appeared that Sony might have learned something, but sadly no. Signing into the PSN should be a choice, as there are legitimate reasons why PC gamers don't want to hand over their details to Sony: lax security being one. Also, Sony is very accustomed to telling their customers how it will be, but they don't have any such dominance over PC gamers and we would like to keep it that way. This is a good lesson in how big companies can behave when their competition falters.

You better believe that if we give way on this, before long there will be a monthly subscription creeping in to play Sony games online and that bullshit is not welcome on PC. As it stands, due to this requirement the game is also not available in over a hundred countries, even for the single-player game! We have also just learned that the single-player game God of War Ragnorok will now need a PSN sign-in to work on PC. Again, this shows how petty and spiteful Sony can be. They make some of the best single-player games we've ever seen, The Last of Us, God of War, Spider-Man etc. Why ruin what could be an amazing new era for Sony games on PC for the sake of a few extra PSN accounts to brag about at the next financial year's end?

Summary

It's funny how things work out sometimes. Gamers have been begging Ubisoft for an Assassin's Creed game set in Japan for years. Last week Ubisoft finally announced their next game will indeed be set in feudal Japan: you have to love the timing. However, I can't help but feel like Sucker Punch has already stolen Ubisoft's lunch. I say this because Creed Games (as much as I enjoy them) have been getting increasingly bogged down with map mess and microtransaction-fueled loot hell. Yet in Ghost of Tsushima, we see a Samurai game free of all that weight and confident enough to not need pointless filler content.

This was an already beautiful game on console and thanks to Nixxes, we have what is by far the quintessential version of Ghost of Tsushima on PC. It is such a joy to play through this game for a third time now, as it feels fresh, fluid and clean. Being able to navigate with mouse and keyboard makes combat feel razor-sharp and precise. I just hope Sony learns fast enough to not alienate PC gamers and remove the ridiculous PSN requirements soon. So if you can actually buy the game and the PSN idiocy doesn't bother you, this game is an absolute must-play.