Conflicting reports surrounding the state of difficulty in Sucker Punch Productions’ upcoming samurai adventure Ghost of Tsushima have come to light. However it does appear as if the game supports multiple difficulty options which is fantastic, although the two interviews have caused some confusion.
In one interview with IGN published on May 21, Game Director Nate Fox explained how players can be downed by only a few hits. “We are trying to make a grounded game in that sense, so a couple blows from the enemy will kill you,” he says, “The game is very challenging.”
Fox goes on to explain that players can’t go in hacking and slashing, “Beating the Mongols in battle will be hard, but it’s that challenge that makes it feel alive and the victory rewarding. You can’t just run into a camp and fight 5 people at the same time, you will get overwhelmed and die.”
He also touches on something that wasn’t present in the State of Play video, and that’s duels against expert swordsmen. “This is classic samurai stuff. Those fights are incredibly difficult and they’re driven from personality and get solved in the most cinematic way possible, which is also true to fantasy. You need to study your opponent and understand how they attack in order to win,”
Already, it’s starting to sound as if Ghost of Tsushima is going to be a similar situation to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice which was subject to the online discourse surrounding the lack of difficulty options for players who either need a less challenging experience, or those just wanting the story.
However, also on May 21, an interview with The Washington Post was published and had creative director Jason Connell talk about the game’s difficulty modes.
““So, first of all, we do have difficulty,” Connell confirms, “If the game is too easy and you want it to be a much more challenging experience, you can take it up a notch. If you find the game is a little too hard, you can take it down. Again, this is an effort to try to get as many players as possible.”
It seems as if Sucker Punch Productions wants it so that “It can’t be so hard that you give up in the first 15 minutes,” as Connell explains, “That would be very frustrating for a lot of people who have a lot to gain from playing the game because they love this medium or this genre. But it also can’t be so easy that there’s no challenge to some of our biggest, most hardcore fans.”
Thankfully, Ghost of Tsushima will have difficulty options present, it just appears as if Fox was specifically talking about the games default difficulty in general without clarification.
So if you’re into samurai culture and can’t wait to get your hands on the game when it launches exclusively for PS4 on July 17, you should be able to enjoy the game as various difficulties.
