First released for PS4 in 2020, Ghost of Tsushima has reached an age where it's now influencing the biggest open world games of today, which were given the green light from publishers around its original launch. Star Wars Outlaws creative director Julian Gerighty has cited the title as his "biggest reference" point during development, joining other teams that used the Sucker Punch Productions effort as inspiration. Studios that made Rise of the Ronin, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Assassin's Creed Mirage have all pointed out the title in the recent past.
Speaking to GamesRadar, when the topic of Red Dead Redemption 2 is brought up, Gerighty responded the following: "It's super interesting because my biggest reference was Ghost of Tsushima, which is more on the Kurosawa side of inspiration than the Western, the John Ford side of the inspiration for George Lucas. He continues by pointing out he feels Ghost of Tsushima leaned into its player fantasy. "This is the story, the world, the character, everything fits together with the gameplay guiding everything. That's the fantasy of 'you are a samurai ninja in Japan'. That was one of the guiding lights for this."
After our recent Star Wars Outlaws Preview, we ourselves got a small sense of how that influence has directed the open world structure of the game. Both titles use a fog of war to uncover the map, with activity and locations icons only added to it when you discover something relating to an item or quest there. It makes exploration and discovery in Star Wars Outlaws feel more natural — as it does in Ghost of Tsushima.
As for what other developers have been saying, Rise of the Ronin studio Team Ninja served as "strong motivation" due to the similar settings while the game was included in research conducted by Square Enix for Final Fantast VII Rebirth as it looked at what other open world games are doing. Then, the Japanese language option in Ghost of Tsushima gave Ubisoft confidence to include an Arabic language setting from the 800's in Assassin's Creed Mirage.
Have you yourself felt much of Ghost of Tsushima's influence in other recent open world games? Share your findings in the comments below.
[source gamesradar.com]
Comments 36
Well that's weird. I saw a lot of Ubi influence in Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn. Go fig.
@TicklefistCP same, I always thought of Ghost as "a rich man's Ubisoft experience"
Can see why. GOT is incredibly good game that deserves all the praise it has received
Yeah, Ghost of Tsushima is very Ubisoft in the first place but it does a lot of the Ubisoft stuff better so why wouldn't it inspire them? Makes sense to me.
Ghost was really good, but the fox hunts, haikus, and other 'do the same thing in two dozen locations' was repetitive. I hope that's not what other studios are taking away from it. Skipping all of that made it an excellent experience for me.
I thought GoT felt like Horizon in Japan. I’m playing Stellar Blade now, w/ my wife watching a bit, and she keeps saying “this is Horizon”. I mean that first solar tower is basically a tall neck. And well the game could almost take place in the same universe.
Anyway Ghost was Horizon in Japan, with much emphasis on the Japan part. Horizon is a bit more generic open world. It’s open world Uncharted. Which itself is Dude Tomb Raider.
I feel like several games recently have seemed similar to GoT, but it’s all the Japanese based ones, not the open world ones, it’s very Japanese. Horizon is very generic open world.
I haven’t really played any of the Assassins Creed games but I did watch my kid play Immortals and there was just something a bit off about it that I don’t really compare it to anything else. Well maybe that season of Fortnite where they basically just dropped Immortals into it.
Never has photo mode seen more use than when I played this game.
Yeah ghost of tsushima is a instant classic.that intro in the start of the game is so legendary.probably the best intro ever.word up son
Was playing GOT for the first time before Shadow of the Erdtree came out. Need to get back into it. The setting is amazing. However, the combat is a little janky and it does feel like an Ubisoft game. It is a lot more relaxing than Elden Ring which will be a nice change of pace.
@TicklefistCP exactly Ghost of Tsushima is clear icons off a map, outposts, unfogging the map
all classic Ubisoft staples for well over a decade
i enjoyed ghosts for the most part but it was basically just assassins creed, everything from the abilities to the traversal was copied from assassins creed and had been done many times before.
Sucker Punch has been making "Ubisoft but polished" games since Infamous....kind of funny that Ubisoft feels inspired to copy their own format from someone who copied their format.
GoT is special but its empty and repetitive open world with bizarre story gated population of areas is probably its weakest attribute.
Ubi copying the game that badly copied Ubi doesn't sound good.
Only right considering it's the best game of all time.
As the late, great Saturo Iwata said "Every Ubisoft game is Open-World, but not every Open-World game is Ubisoft".
GoT may have done an Open-World with similar mechanics to Ubisoft, but they did it with a richer, more focused story and intent than Ubisoft ever have.
And for @Lup because I never got around to replying in the other thread - Ubisoft get hate for their games because all of their games are Open-World. They basically rehash the exact same mechanics the exact same way, hell for a bunch of the Far Cry games they even reused the exact map in the sequel. Pure laziness on their part. When a different developer steps up and does it all but better, they're going to get attention and praise for it, because they've taken the Open-World game and done it better than a company who do nothing but Open-World.
Ghost of Tsushima is a brilliantly designed game, especially in the way it marries its themes, mechanics and aesthetics to successfully tell its story within an open world framework.
@Mortal
Would love to answer you and have a proper discussion but it's clearly not allowed in this site.
Given that Lucas wanted to do 'Kurosawa In Space', and Star wars is basically Seven Samaurai, it makes a whole lot of sense to use a game that used Kurosawa as a style inspiration, to guide
For me, there's three thing that GoT did a lot better compare to AC:
1. The combat is excellent. The sword fight and stealth feels really polished and the enemies also offer some challenges aka they are not brain dead easy like in AC. Even if you upgrade Jin to the maximum, the enemies are still quite challenging in the highest difficulty.
2. Exploring Tsushima feels really natural and fun possibly because the wind mechanic, less hud, better side quest, and more environment variety. While in AC, exploration sometimes feels like a chore.
3. Better graphic and music and both gel really well with each other. While in AC, sometimes the music doesn't fit with the scenery / event.
Good, Ghost is a fantastic open world game so I'm glad it's being used as an influence for other open world entries.
Ghost of Tsushima was great but it also suffered from a lot of the same problems as other open world games and I've never understood what it apparently did so much better.
Great game but quite awful open world gameplay. Guiding winds often had you treading away from the beaten path, you end up on a fackin cliff when the path to your destination is downwards. Enemies spawning at every junction. Can't even forward time like a true open world.
I actually didn't like that ghost didn't have a mini-map. Made me pull up the map more times than i wanted.
I loved Ghost of Thushima the way to find stuff with the wind felt way more interesting then a boring minimap. The story was great the characters were all likeable I had a blast and the looks were fantastic on the PS5.
@TheArt I have to disagree it's not holding your hand it's just more realistic and the world was so beautiful that I didn't mind walking around even without my horse.
@Cloud39472 Fantastic gameplay, awsome story, likeable characters, even better DLC, guiding winds, fox petting and it was a treat to walk around in the world.
@NEStalgia The didn't copy it 1 on 1 they made it better in every single way.
@Flaming_Kaiser Elden Ring doesn't hold your hand yet it's so easy to traverse and navigate. From Software's first attempt at open world and they completely nailed it.
@Flaming_Kaiser I'm a huge Sucker Punch fan from the Sly and Infamous days, so I like their Ubisoft based design (though I like assassin's Creed so didn't judge lol) but the got world design in terms of open world has some glaring problems that surprised me from SP, but at the same time it's so beautiful to explore.
I didn't totally finish the game and iki for other reasons, but, as I work on building my pcvr rig in the wake of psvr2s fate I actually bought got again on steam the other week on the summer sale so I can get the Luke Ross mod and play it again in VR 🤤. It's a little ways away but I'm going to get lost in that for a loooong time
@Flaming_Kaiser All of that is very subjective and doesn't make it "better" than anything that came before it. At least not for me anyway. Guiding winds is the only thing mentioned that is different and even that is just like following a waypoint in any other game.
I quite enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima. The most impressive was the short loading times on PS4 despite being an open-world game. I don't have much to complain about with the game, other than how much de-fogging was needed to have a clear map.
@Cloud39472 The interesting part of the guiding wind comes when playing in black and white mode. Since you wouldn't be able to distinguish the white wind as easily without the colors, they amplified the sound of the wind when you're on the right path.
@Cloud39472 For me nothing from this is subjective the game beats Ubisoft at everything and while looking better and the gameplay is better then any Assassins Creed. 😆
@Malaise That is why I play a game to soak in the atmosphere and have fun. The gameplay was a blast the unlockables awsome.
Without the shadow of a doubt RDR2 is awsome im just not a big cowboy fan plus some design choices are not really my thing.
But let's be clear it's a fantastic game but somehow i do believe that Ghost of Tsushima is a really loved game.
@TheArt Can't disagree because I have not played it yet no time. And I loved all their games so far so im certain this won't b different.
@playstation1995 word
@Chaostrophy oh yeahhhhh.word up son
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