One of the bigger reveals in last week’s Ghost of Tsushima State of Play presentation was Jin’s evolution from an honourable samurai to a sneaky ghost willing to use all tactics to get a leg up on his enemies. To demonstrate the differences in gameplay, developer Sucker Punch ran through the same enemy camp using the two different play styles. It turns out, the two are interchangeable, and come down to the abilities they give you. In other words, you won’t be locked to using ghost abilities and forget all about being a samurai. Ghost of Tsushima creative director Jason Connell explained to IGN that Jin’s evolution is more of a story thing. For instance, you will be able to challenge enemies to a standoff even when you’re decked out in ghost abilities and gear.
“There’s definitely important story moments that are more reflective of this change than others,” said Connell. “But the reality is that even as you have gotten to some story moments, you can still play the game as this Samurai, you may just be more potent or more powerful. We don’t make you choose between [samurai and ghost].” “On the stealth [State of Play segment], if you wanted to jump off the roof and start fighting like a samurai, you could totally do that. We don’t spec you out and suddenly you can’t play as a samurai,” he added. In the same interview, Connell also revealed that Tsushima won’t bring back the karma/morality meter seen in the studio’s Infamous games. Instead, the developer wanted the evolution from samurai to ghost to be organic, and happen through the story arc. “We thought about [a morality meter] because we had the karma system in [Infamous: Second Son], but we realized it was more important to us that we wanted to tell a human story of someone who is this way and has to evolve into something else, versus transform completely into something else,” he explained. “He doesn’t flip flop back and forth, it muddied it up for us. We really wanted the story to reflect his transformation.” This is also the story justification for why Jin won’t suddenly forget his samurai training late into the game, even when he’s completely embraced the persona of the ghost. Ghost of Tsushima is out July 17 on PS4.
