While Ghost of Tsushima’s open world, exploration mechanics, and narrative premise have looked excellent in the lead-up to its launch, the game’s combat is one of the few areas where many aren’t sure what to think. And though we didn’t see a ton of combat in the recent gameplay deep dive, Sucker Punch have been talking about it lot more since then.
During a recent interview with VG247, creative director Jason Connell spoke about one specific aspect of combat- stances. We saw a small glimpse of this last week- Jin essentially has to switch stances in the middle of combat, with each stance being strong against and weak to different kinds of enemies. During the aforementioned interview, Connell dropped some more details on that.
“We show off stances a little bit, so you’re going to have to pick the right stance in order to fight the right person,” he said. “That’s what stances are for in the game, and that’s especially useful if you get surrounded by too many people. Knowing that you could switch to this stance, because it’s easier to take out the guy with the shield, that’s good.”
According to Connell, stances are another mechanic that have been designed to make players feel like they’re immersed in a proper, authentic samurai experience.
“We want you to feel like you’re playing a samurai,” Connell said. “And so, stances are a big part of that, and in our game, stances are a way to – what kind of enemy is coming at you? And if you need to take them out quickly, you would want to switch to the appropriate stance.”
Recently, the developers also spoke about the combat’s challenging nature and how standoff duels will function. You can read more on that through here, or get even more details on combat (and other elements) through here.
Ghost of Tsushima is out for the PS4 on July 17.