Ghost of Tsushima’s Story Seems to Be Emphasizing Authenticity and Player Agency

We haven’t heard a great deal about Ghost of Tsushima’s story up until now, but what we have heard has certainly been quite encouraging. Now, new details on the game’s narrative have been revealed in the May 2020 issue of the Official PlayStation Magazine (compiled over at Reddit), and the Sucker Punch-developed game continues to sound promising.

The game begins as Mongol forces invade the island of Tsushima, but when the island’s defences are obliterated in a crushing defeat, very few samurai are still left standing, including protagonist Jin and his teacher and father figure Shimura, who is also the lord of Tsushima. Jin realizes that he cannot defeat the Mongols by carrying on with his honour-bound code of the samurai way, and must adapt more stealthy and guerrilla-esque ninja tactics, with him slowly adopting the mantle of The Ghost, a shadowy vigilante-like figure.

Throughout the story, Jin will ally with various different characters, and interestingly enough, players’ actions throughout the game will affect how relationships with them develop. One character in particular – Makoto, an expert with the bow and the sword – can help spread the legend of The Ghost, but if your actions don’t sit well with her, she might actually end up becoming a foe of Jin’s.

A focus of the story is going to be the inner conflict in Jin as he struggles to balance the honourable samurai code with his new tactics, which are more in line with guerrilla warfare. His former master, Shimura, for instance, is none too pleased about the new path Jin is headed down. The magazine article also states that the game’s story and the way it approaches historical accuracy takes a lot of cues from the works of Akira Kurosawa. Meanwhile, Shigeru Umebayashi serves as the composer of the game’s soundtrack.

Ghost of Tsushima is due out for the PS4 on June 26. In this same article, plenty of new gameplay details on the game’s combat, stealth, and open world exploration also emerged. Get more info on those through here.