Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut’s PS5 Features Are “Fully Enveloped into the Iki Expansion”

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut is releasing for both PS5 and PS4 soon, and the biggest attraction of the release, which is the new Iki Island expansion, is, of course, going to be available on both systems. PS5 users, however, are going to get certain exclusive upgrades, suck as 4K/60 FPS visuals and performance, faster load times, enhanced audio, DualSense implementation, and Japanese lip syncing. The game’s pricing model has already attracted some criticism, but speaking recently in an interview with Press Start, the developers tried explaining why these features have been locked behind a paid upgrade even for those who get the Director’s Cut on the PS4.

According to creative and art director Jason Connell, the PS5-specific features in Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut aren’t just generic upgrades, but rather form an integral part of the Iki Island expansion, and Sucker Punch didn’t want to separate the two components.

“The thing that I think is important for people to know is that, those features that make it so specific to the PS5, we didn’t just work on those as a generic hardware upgrade, they are fully enveloped into the Iki expansion and Jin’s experiences on Iki,” Connell said. “They were really tightly connected to one another. So that’s kind of the reason why we didn’t look at them as kind of separate. We really wanted those two to sing together. And that’s the base reason why.”

Of course, given that the Iki Island expansion is also going to be available on PS4 without those upgrades, one has to wonder just how enveloped into the experience they really are.

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut is coming to PS5 and PS4 on August 20.