Ishin Ghost of Tsushima
Image: Push Square

It's been noted numerous times up until this point, but Ghost of Tsushima really did strike a chord with Japanese gamers and developers. Sony's excellent open world title — first released in 2020 — enjoyed a lot of success in the nation that it was portraying, and you may remember that former RGG Studio boss Toshihiro Nagoshi was absolutely bowled over by Jin Sakai's adventure.

Even back then, Nagoshi's words had fans wondering whether the SEGA outfit would move to localise its Yakuza samurai spinoff games Kenzan and Ishin here in the West, off the back of Ghost's success. This speculation then exploded when former RGG Studio producer Daisuke Sato reiterated Ghost of Tsushima's prowess, and hinted that it would be the "opportune" time to finally release Kenzan and Ishin overseas.

And now here we are in 2022, and Like a Dragon: Ishin! — a full-on remake of Ishin — has been confirmed for a global release in February of next year. And guess what? It sounds like Ghost of Tsushima played an important role in that decision.

In a new interview with Fanbyte, current RGG Studio producer Masayoshi Yokoyama admits that Ghost's impact helped the team decide that a new, worldwide Ishin! was the right call. "We saw how well Ghost of Tsushima did, and how it was about this very Japanese setting made by Americans, so that gave us confidence Ishin! could do well in America too," Yokoyama says.

Of course, Ishin! isn't the only samurai game that Ghost seems to have influenced in some way. We've got Assassin's Creed Red and the freshly announced Rise of the Ronin coming to PS5 in the next couple of years, and although the latter has reportedly been in development for a long time, it's still fair to assume that Ghost of Tsushima has opened the floodgates. It'll be very interesting to see how all of these samurai games compete with one another, especially since Ghost of Tsushima 2 is all but inevitable.

[source fanbyte.com]