A gorgeous, static open world.
NO SPOILERS
I am going to be honest with you all. I really enjoyed my time with Ghost of Tsushima. It was a really fun game and it had a beautiful world. I played about 55 hours of it, nearly finishing all of the open world activities and I would play it all over again. But here is the thing. I'm not here to praise it, I want to talk about what it could have done better. I would like to touch on the open world gameplay and the general open world design of this game and what could have been improved. So let's get right to it.
Before I dive into it further, for those of you who don't know, here is the official description of the game:
In the late 13th century, the Mongol empire has laid waste to entire nations along their campaign to conquer the East. Tsushima Island is all that stands between mainland Japan and a massive Mongol invasion fleet led by the ruthless and cunning general, Khotun Khan.
As the island burns in the wake of the first wave of the Mongol assault, samurai warrior Jin Sakai stands as one of the last surviving members of his clan. He is resolved to do whatever it takes, at any cost, to protect his people and reclaim his home. He must set aside the traditions that have shaped him as a warrior to forge a new path, the path of the Ghost, and wage an unconventional war for the freedom of Tsushima.
Open World Gameplay
Ghost of Tsushima isn't a unique open world when it comes to its design. It's a game closer to Spiderman rather than The Witcher 3, simply because the gameplay is very repetitive and doesn't offer many unique variations. Thankfully, it is very fun and it doesn't take away from the experience. But it also doesn't add to it.
When it comes to its open world, the game has a lot of busy work that does provide benefits to the player such as unlocking various charms, but the open world activities include some of the most repetitive gameplay in a AAA game that I have ever seen. Let me give you an example. In the game you can find fox dens which have a cute fox waiting around that the player has to follow. The distance to the final destination isn't far and at the end of it you honor a shrine which gives you a reward. The problem with this gameplay is that it is repeated across the map in the exact same way around 50 times. Not once during this gameplay activity does something interesting happen. You find a fox, you follow it, you honor a shrine. Rinse and repeat. This applies to all of it's open world activities such as Shinto Shrines, Bamboo Strikes, Haiku, etc. They all work in the exact same way every time. From an AAA game of this scale I would have expected variety.
Maybe while you follow the fox, a Mongol ambush is waiting for you at the end destination so now you have to fight enemies. Or maybe at one of the fox dens, the fox is killed by a Mongol dog and you have to investigate the area to find the shrine yourself as you cannot follow the fox anymore. Reverting expectations and spicing up the existing systemic design of an open world activity is what makes for a unique and more memorable experience. I could not find that in Ghost of Tsushima's design throughout the whole game.
When it comes to other open worlds activities that aren't your cut and dry fox dens, the game doesn't evolve past the basic combat either and keeps the same repetitiveness without exception. There are a lot of small encounters with Mongols on the roads of Tsushima where you have to save a civilian that they have captured. All the civilians have the same animations and the same lines repeating after you save them and the player character himself has the exact same animations and lines too. This tends to built up and become very noticeable especially since it appears also in other activities like in the Farmsteads and main/side missions. In general, unless you are playing the Tales of the game, all you'll get from Ghost of Tsushima's open world is a simple systemic design that doesn't ask much of the player. Tales on the other hand are handcrafted side missions. Those include Jin's Journey which are basically the main missions, the biggest and more rounded missions in the game, the Mythic Tales, the secondary handcrafted missions that offer a variety in their design, and finally the Side Tales which the simplest missions that usually offer a small story.
Jin's Journey is a fun experience and not a long one if you end up just playing that. It uses the basic gameplay aspects of the game which are melee and long-range combat, traversal and stealth and mixes them up in different ways. It tends to provide more unique gameplay such as shooting at a Mongol fleet in the open sea with their own weapon, the hwacha, and it is accompanied by the character's stories and arcs making it an overall good main campaign.
The Mythic Tales, arguably the most interesting part of the game, are all about learning the history of the island and unlocking gameplay abilities. While completely optional they provide big rewards that unlock whole new ways to play. They are beautifully crafted with a gorgeous intro and they are more about exploration rather than combat. The player ends up searching the island for armor and new ultimate combat abilities which provide a sense of adventure and mystery rewarded with cool new features.
The Side Tales are usually very small missions around the map that offer some sort of story. Some of them are super simple like following tracks to an enemy camp and killing them off and some span across the whole game and are about a specific character. The latter is a great open world activity design as character missions are a set of missions with one story arc which are depended on how far in the main campaign the player is in order for them to unlock, creating a nice sense of pacing. There are a ton of smaller tales around the map and the stories are always nice but yet again, they lack in gameplay. It is almost identical, switching from combat to "investigation" and I wished it offered a bit more variety in each part. What if you were stripped of all your abilities and you could only dodge instead of fight and had use environmental objects to defeat your opponent? What if a village was set on fire and you only had a set amount of time to kill the enemies otherwise the civilians would die and the village forever burned? That would have added a fail state in relation to the player's actions and would have altered the open world according to them.
Here is an example of a mission that removes all interactivity that would have been interesting:
In this example the AI is asking for a proper death so a small cutscene plays before it fades to black which then shows another small cutscene of the player setting fire to the man's corpse. The end. Instead of the game creating a unique gameplay situation where you take the man's body, stack up wood, place the body, light a fire and then throw it on the stack of wood to burn it, it cuts all of that and misses all the emotional impact this side quest had to offer. The game does this with every interaction both in main missions and side missions and it seriously subtracts from creating a seamless experience. Instead of making the player do the thing, it just fades to black and tells you that the player character has done the thing. Not doing the thing is the opposite of what it means to be a game because games are all about doing the thing yourself. Here is a super clear example:
The objective is to 'Light the Incense' which is done by approaching the object and clicking R2. The problem is that it fades to black for a second and then fades back in. This happens with every single interaction in the game.Why? Most of the animations already exist for these actions and this fade in/out takes you out of the experience. I understand they might be trying to hide things such as new assets spawning but a better system handling how those assets get created while in view of the player would have grounded the experience a lot more.
In conclusion, regarding the open world activities as well as the core gameplay of Ghost of Tsushima, the game holds on to its systemic design and doesn't deviate to create a more personalized and unique experience. While the core gameplay is super fun and satisfying and what ends up saving the game, imagine if the activities around the world were constructed a bit more interestingly and the interactions were actually player driven.
Open World Design
Let's talk about the design of the open world itself now. The world is one of the prettiest open world games I have played. The way the light and color works, the particles, the weather, it all is absolutely breathtaking and stunning. Here are some screenshots that I took to convince you:
The game includes various locations like open fields, swamps, snowy mountains, mountains covered in flowers, humid forests, etc, each one feeling different and special. What is disappointing is how the player exists in this world. In short, the world feels very static and the player barely has any interactions with it. I said it before and I'll say it again, an open world game should always focus on its open world aspect and not the main (mostly linear) campaign. This begs the question "what is an open world game and what does it need to function?". A lot of AAA games, Ghost of Tsushima included, create an open world backdrop rather than an open world playground and here is the difference:
A backdrop has no function, it's static, it exists to create space but no interactivity.
A playground on the other hand offers player actions and reacts to them as well as provides interactivity as much as possible in order for the player to role play.
Here is an example; Spiderman's open world is a backdrop. What counts as a playground world though? Here are 4 rules:
- The world changes or adjusts to the player actions
- The player interacts or affects AIs lives in any way
- The player's open world actions create stories
- The player interacts with 3D objects around the world in a meaningful way
Let's create an example of a playground Spiderman open world instead and talk the talk.
The world changes or adjusts to the player actions -> if the player during a side mission destroys a crane, you will see pieces of the crane in the open world after the mission ends and it would have it's own timeline of events. Crew members would be working around to pick up the broken pieces, AI would gather around the area and look interested in it, police vehicles would be around to keep citizens away, the roads would be closed causing traffic to use a different route. In-game days progress the event until life goes back to normal.
The player interacts or affects AIs lives in any way + the player's open world actions create stories -> if the player goes to a construction site and destroys equipment during a fight there, the construction site could close and the AI would flee. This prompt would create panic for some AI characters tagged as 'construction workers', as word spreads that Spiderman has been "terrorising" construction sites via J. Jonah Jameson's radio show. The construction worker AIs around the neighborhood would be more panicky the next time they see Spiderman and this small interaction supports J. Jonah Jameson's rumors that Spiderman is dangerous. This event could last a few in-game days before going back to normal.
The player interacts with 3D objects around the world in a meaningful way -> if the player approached a streetlamp you'd be able to hang upside down from it and play some unique and fun animations. If the player approached a kiosk they could buy a pizza slice to eat which would pull Spiderman's mask up and animated him lifting the pizza slice and eating it. This could restore a bit of health.
The examples I have given are very much possible and already done in other AAA open world games. These interactions and player actions allow the player to exist in the created open world and role play which is what open worlds should always be about. Now let's see some examples of how Ghost of Tsushima creates a backdrop rather than a playground keeping those 4 rules in mind.
Horse -> I made this its own category because it deserves it. The player horse works merely as a transportation system. The player cannot feed it, interact with it, care for it. In fact, the horse is not designed to be an animal but more to be a mechanic, and not an interesting one. Whistling for the horse spawns it right out of view of the camera no matter what. It is extremely obvious and not handled nicely. Here is a video showcasing it:
Not only the player can see the horse being teleported out of view, the horse also spawns right behind the player and while this is super convenient, it's also why it's very out of touch and boring. Convenience in games is an enemy to a grounded experience but an ally to a user friendly experience. Making the horse gallop to the player from a distance gives the horse life, it shows that it's an animal, alive and listening to your command. Spawning it right behind the player makes it a mechanic with no intelligence. In a game in which you have to travel around the map with your horse 90% of the time they could have made the horse a companion rather than a means to an end. Give it food, pet it, clean it, allow it to rest, make sure it has behaviours like being scared, tired, anxious. The horse has no AI, it is an empty vessel and you soon forget that it's even a living thing.
AI -> Just like the example I have given for Spiderman's AI, it could have greatly benefited the game if the AI had a bit more intelligence. I super appreciated the fact that the AI would talk about recent events that happen in the main story if you walk past them, but that is all I got from them that gave them a bit of life. Yes, they all play different animations in the camps but even that can become repetitive. In towns and other safe areas the player cannot shoot or fight as those actions are locked, and while that fits the character of the protagonist and the game's themes, it creates a very static AI that boils down to playing various animations in those areas. But we can forgive that as it fits with the theme. The most prominent issues are seen with AI used in gameplay and I'll use the example I have already given above. While rescuing AI's from Mongols they will all play the same animations and have the same lines but what happens once you kill the Mongols? The AI immediately shouts for help so you can untie them. Yes, they are all tied in the same way and yes they all immediately, not within a couple of seconds delay, will start shouting for help. And what happens when you untie them? Well they just stand in place. None of them start walking back to their towns or houses. None of them provide more gameplay. They forever stand in place doing absolutely nothing. It would have been nice to at least have some actual human behaviour for example, maybe some could sit down and cry because of what just happened. Some could start running back to their house because they are scared. Some could ask the player for a ride back home if the weather was rainy or snowy. Some could run away from the player himself because they heard rumours that he is a bad. Anything to add a bit more story and character to them which would in turn, enrich the world.
Finally, let's quickly talk about the lack of life in the world. The AI that exists in the world is either friendly or an enemy. Friendly AI is either static around the world (see image of woman above after being rescued), an ally that will accompany you in the missions, an AI living in a camps or town, or an animal. The AI you rescue is super limited, the mission AI is scripted with various systems, the town living AI is non interactive and the animal AI is seen around various locations in the world but there is only a handful of them. Enemy AI includes the Mongols and other type of human enemies as well as animal enemies such as boars or bears. Enemy AI can be found mostly anywhere around the world and are fully interactive AKA you can kill them.
The rest of the world is pretty empty. The amount of animals that can be found in this game comes down to probably single digit numbers which is bizarre for an open world game set mainly in the wildlife, and the amount of friendly AI in the open world comes down to zero. Basically, you will be mainly seeing enemies roaming around which brings down the life found in the open world to super minimal numbers.
World Interactivity -> The game always talks about rest and food and finding peace through hardship but there are no mechanics that allow it. The animations exist for all of these actions, for example, sitting down and meditating or writing haiku, playing the flute, lying down, etc, but it never allows you to use them around the world. It would have been nice if I could approach a campfire and sit next to the people, take my flute out and play a melody. Maybe grab a bowl of food and eat it. The game doesn't allow you to do any of that even though some systems needed for them to work already exist. Allowing actions like that doesn't earn you rewards or skills but allows you to role play the role that the developers are giving the player. It allows them to be that character and just exist in that world. What ends up happening instead is that you find beautiful locations and interesting settlements but all you do is pass through them until you find the next one and you pass through it and so on and so forth, never staying in that moment and just existing. And that is because the game doesn't give you the tools to stay in that moment. I might be wrong but a lot of this interactivity might be missing because the animation system cannot support a non-flat terrain. You can see it from these screens here:
You will notice lack of animations between character & character in the game and between characters & objects and for a good reason. The system doesn't seem to support the ability to adjust the lower body of the character accordingly to the landscape below them. Usually, to its basic form at least, animations are played given a point of origin (maybe player position) and offset (from origin point). This will play the animation at the exact coordinates but if the ground is not flat below the origin point, the characters are forced to snap to that origin point and will look like they are floating. One solution to that is something you see in a ton of recent games within their basic locomotion system. An example is going up a flight of stairs where the character will lift their leg and bend their knee to match up the stairs height. Of course, even if that specific support is there, it's harder to apply it on full body animations.
Moving on, another example that can be found in the gameplay is the 'Survey' button, mostly found in story missions. It allows you to look over an enemy location and observe it. This mechanic doesn't exist anywhere else though, only in some story missions. The game offers a huge variety of Strongholds, Outposts and other enemy hideouts to defeat but for some reason this mechanic does not exist in the open world activities. This would have added another layer or being able to interact with the player's surroundings and would support the gameplay by allowing the player to be more strategic with their approach.
World Design -> The world of Ghost of Tsushima is fantastic when it comes to guiding you and providing a variety of locations to ride through. I too have the same praise to give as other people when it comes to its landscapes, wind mechanic, landmark guiding, etc but here are some issues I have found with those. Let's start with the map found in the UI screen. The map itself is missing a lot of detail (to fit the general aesthetic I assume) but as Days Gone's map has proved, open world games with lots of interesting places should show them off on their maps either after they are discovered of before, depending on the design choice. I am not talking about large interesting areas but even the smallest detail. An example would be finding a small cemetary or a unique looking tree overlooking the sea or a small hut where everyone seems to have been killed and marking those as points of interest (POI) on the map. When the player walks away from those, they will forget their location immediately. The map could have included POIs so the player can come back to them. This not only works for coming back to them but for also recognizing areas. The map of the game doesn't make areas very recognizable and in fact it only focuses on the mission or activity blips that exist on it. The rest of it doesn't matter at all. Take a look at the lack of detail shown on the map below:
Moving away from the map, the world itself has great close distance landmarks which work nicely if you are already heading towards them but not so great if you want to get back to them another time and the reason is because they aren't memorable. Don't get me wrong there are a ton of awesome landmarks and areas in the game but for most of them I can fast travel from the main menu map. The rest of the landmarks are either a) not memorable enough or b) cannot be found on the main menu map in order to revisit them.
The game also includes the promoted smoke fumes, the tall banners, the trail of Torii Gates leading to Shrines, etc (let's call them guiding POIs) that can seen from far away and draw the player towards them, and while a fantastic idea, it falls short because of the wind mechanic. The wind mechanic makes the wind blow in the same direction as the player's destination and it's yet another incredible design choice which removes the need for a minimap. The problem lies within the fact that the player can select nearly all landmarks, activities, missions, etc on the menu map and the wind mechanic will guide the player to them. The guiding POIs become a bit unnecessary since the wind can take the player to them and therefore are only ever used if the player doesn't use the wind mechanic to get to them. I rarely even looked at any of the guiding POIs because of the wind mechanic. They are incredibly placed and have been designed to be easily recognizable amongst the world details but unfortunately the use for them is a bit moot.
While this blog focuses on breaking down what didn't work in Ghost of Tsushima, I would like to devote at least a paragraph to what I really liked and what I will be personally taking away from this game.
As I mentioned before, I had a great time with the game. I could have had an even better time but it doesn't mean that the game is bad, not by a long shot. It's because the game is so fun and good that I wanted to break it down and write down all the things that could have been better. Without further ado, So here are some things that were done really well:
Combat -> Pending some camera improvements, the combat is mainly stellar and soooo satisfying. It introduces a Stances mechanic which has the player switching stances on the fly to match the enemy type therefore allowing the player to break their defences and bring some different movesets to the choreography. Combat allows the player to use stealth and stealth tools, long ranged distance combat tools, short ranged distance combat tools and creates this nice variety in playstyle.
Combat level design -> Fantastic areas for creating lots of combat opportunities whether that's hiding in grass or walking above the enemies on rope, or assassinating enemies from above, or using the grappling hook to swiftly change positions, or small cracks to squeeze into new areas, beehives to shoot arrows to and cause mayhem - you name it. Here is an example of a combat area (not the best one in the game but it includes a few of the systems I mentioned above)
Traversal & Landmarks - > The wind mechanic as well as the guiding POIs ideas is incredible and I would love to see other games come up with unique and more immersive ways to guide the player. The landmarks are super clear and stand out from the rest of the world something that is a bit of a problem with other games because everything is so similar looking. It's so easy to see a Torri Gate among grass because it towers above it or see tall banners with some loot underneath because they are colorful across the sky. The distinction is always clear and those POI aren't muddled with the rest of the world. In general, the world of Ghost of Tsushima was built so the player can travel a bit differently than other open world games. Usually you are expected to use roads and follow tracks but in this game the wind mechanic creates a straight connection to the destination so it makes the player ride through forests, flowers, over fields of grass so the roads aren't the main way to travel. This introduces the player to the beautiful vistas the game has to offer by going off the beaten path.
Quality of life -> Ghost of Tsushima values your time. You can loot while riding on a horse with a click of a button. You can change the weather if you are tired of storms by playing your flute. You can see what you can upgrade next the moment you have the right loot because the game will give you a pop up notification and will mark it in various areas on the HUD. When you loot either while on foot or on horseback, the character doesn't have any lengthy animations or navigation paths to follow in order to get the loot. Some of these ideas are very welcome and I was very happy to see them in the game.
To wrap it up, I think the game could have had lots of improvements to its open world gameplay and general design. I think those would have polished the game and provided a great open world experience. This doesn't subtract from the fun I had with the game but for the sequel I would love to see Sucker Punch take it to the next level and show us what it means to create an open world game on a AAA scale.
Quick THOUGHTS
Ghost of Tsushima is worth buying.
Ghost of Tsushima is gorgeous and sometimes very peaceful.
Ghost of Tsushima has a static open world.
Ghost of Tsushima could have used more variety in its gameplay design.
Ghost of Tsushima offers a unique setting in Japan worth exploring.
Ghost of Tsushima has a great combat system and fun gameplay.
Ghost of Tsushima is easy to pick up and play once you get used to it.
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