9/19/2023 0 Comments Ghost of tsushima expansion![]() ![]() One of the reasons Ghost of Tsushima is so compelling to play comes down to the developers’ commitment. Ghost of Tsushima’s vision of healing does not involve justice, but the saccharine image of two people shaking hands across the aisle, reducing decades of violence to a mere disagreement that can be hashed out with some sick team-ups. Jin’s alliance of convenience is amends enough, in the end. This is all, according to the developers, in service of “ a story about healing.” Across the new campaign’s roughly six-hour run time, Ghost of Tsushima’s Iki Island expansion introduces these ideas but never finds the room to dig into them, nor does it give much credence to the pain endured by the raiders. In his conversations with them, Jin is forced to consider another time, when the invaders were not Mongols, but samurai, and his father was the one committing the same sort of violence against the raiders that Jin detests the Mongols for. The main Iki Island story finds Jin hiding his identity as the new Lord Sakai in order to defeat The Eagle with the help of the so-called raiders that killed his father. ![]() That childhood trauma forms the spine of the expansion, and is the source of its most interesting ideas. This island holds great significance for Jin Sakai: It’s where he watched his father die. Upon arrival, Jin learns that another Mongol clan led by a shaman named Anshar Khatoun, known by her followers as The Eagle, is amassing power in the nearby Iki Island. It begins when Jin discovers a village suffering from a mysterious mental affliction. The Iki Island expansion begins to interrogate that - if only briefly. However, a Mongol invasion forced Jin to become a ghost, and deal “dishonorable” death from the shadows in order to save his home.īut the samurai way meant something different in history than it did in the main campaign of Ghost of Tsushima. Jin, the samurai of Tsushima, called out his foes to face them one on one on the battlefield in “honorable” duels. Ghost of Tsushima’s admirably personal story saw protagonist Jin Sakai reconsidering the samurai way, but in practice, his examination was one of methodology, not one of politics or culture. Its status as a work of historical fiction is on similarly shaky ground, as its version of 13th-century Japan is one that appears to be steeped in propaganda more than actual history. The Kurosawa homage it purports to be falls apart when the acclaimed filmmaker’s catalog is seriously considered. Inviting players to think about the world outside of its lovely little sandbox has proven to be troublesome for Ghost of Tsushima. Image: Sucker Punch Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment But Ghost of Tsushima, more than other games, invites that comparison, because it is openly an homage to a very narrow slice of samurai cinema: the kind that is idealized in the West, where it’s lovingly imported and reworked into Westerns or Star Wars. Ghost of Tsushima is far from the only game to be re-released under this nomenclature, and it’s possible the developers at Sucker Punch feel the same way about it as Hideo Kojima - who noted that while a “director’s cut” of Death Stranding is being released, it’s not his preferred term. (In what way is this a different “cut” of the video game? What was removed, or restored? Why doesn’t the original release deserve this distinction?) ![]() It indicates that it is the best version of the samurai epic that made the 2020 PlayStation 4 exclusive a hit with players, but it does so with a term clumsily lifted from film, one that falls apart entirely when thought about for more than a second. The awkward title of the latest edition of the game, Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut, heightens that tension between these two philosophies of considering the game. The former Ghost is flattering to consider. The other is the video game version of a guy who only communicates in movie references, so in love with his idea of the films he endlessly recalls that it becomes impossible to connect with any person underneath. One is an exquisitely crafted open-world game that, while highly derivative, delivers one of the smoothest action-blockbuster experiences in recent memory - a gorgeous, finely tuned adventure that offers endless rewards with minimal friction to those that keep playing. ![]()
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