Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut - Review

If you are yet to hear of the chart topping, multi award winning Ghost Of Tsushima yet then that means one of two things, you have been living under a very large rock or you have never been interested in video games at all. Ghost Of Tsushima stormed onto the PS4 back in July of 2020 and pretty much wowed everybody that got their hands on the game, including myself. From the amazing mood setting graphics and soundtrack through to the fluid and absolutely amazing combat system in the game, Tsushima deserved all the praise that was heaped upon it, it was part game, part motion picture, a true work of art packaged up into playable video game form. Even the games multiplayer mode had depth and was more than just a stitched-on project to the main campaign, mostly due to the amazing combat mechanics. I could gush about Ghost Of Tsushima all day as I found it to be one of the best games released on the PS4 but I will stop myself, after all Maxi-Geek already has an excellent review of the original game available for you to read at your leisure, and it’s absolutely free! Don’t say we don’t look after you around these parts.

 A PlayStation 5 upgrade of Ghost Of Tsushima was inevitable as it seems to be the latest craze at the moment and these upgrades fill the gap nicely as we wait for titles that are built from the ground up for PS5 to come along. Some of these “upgraded” titles offer nothing more than minimal graphics upgrades and a boost in the FPS department, Ghost is not one of those titles, you can tell love and care has gone into this upgrade to make it more than just a fresh coat of paint. The director’s cut uses the PS5’s technology to really make Tsushima shine, running at 4K 60fps the world looks stunning and the gameplay is as smooth as a silk kimono crafted by the finest tailor in the lands, alongside this the almost instantaneous load times ensure that your immersion in the games stunningly crafted environments is never broken for more than a few seconds.

Sucker Punch studios have also taken on one of the criticisms of the original game on board and ensured that lip sync is now a reality when using the Japanese voice soundtrack in the game. Alongside these improvements the director’s cut also makes good use of the haptic feedback and adaptive trigger features of the PS5s DualSense controller and makes improvements to the PS5s 3D audio soundtrack making you feel more immersed in the game than ever before. Improvements and add-ons to the multi-player legends mode have also been promised in future patches.

The meat of the director’s cut edition of Tsushima is contained in the games new expansion which takes place on Iki Island, where both Jin and his father have a history, just off the coast of Tsushima. I am not going to give much away about the story and why the main protagonist Jin needs to travel across to Iki island except to say that Jin finds out about a new Mongol threat consisting of a mysterious shamanistic new clan of Mongols and needs to go and investigate where they are coming from, before embarking on this new quest the game will advise you that you won’t be able to come back to the original story until you have reached a certain place in the DLC campaign and I would advise players not to embark on the journey unless they are ready to abandon the original storyline for a few hours.

The expansion offers not only a whole new storyline and decent sized item to explore it also offers new game techniques to learn my favourite of which was the horse charge, using this while riding your horse will chew up your resolve meter in exchange on being able to charge through enemies whilst riding your horse, this makes you feel like a real bad arse as you charge through enemies and mow them down and easily replaced my previous favourite way of dealing with enemies which was via the standoff mechanic. The charge comes in useful especially when dealing with the variety of new enemy types that inhabit Iki island, the most annoying of them being the shamanistic chanting Mongols that provide buffs to other enemies armour, be sure to take these out first or you will have a hard time dispatching of other foes, there are also now Mongols that will switch between swords, spears and shields which will keep you on your toes swapping between different techniques in order to dispatch of them.

There are also new archery challenges strewn around various locations on the island where you have to shoot a certain number of lamps before time expires in order to earn a reward, these are tough and will require quite a few goes before you achieve a gold rating in them. Animal sanctuaries are scattered across the new region and see you playing the flute in guitar hero like mini games tilting the controller up and down to keep it in between the lines on the screen, if you are successful you will get to pat the creatures that inhabit the sanctuary, cats being my favourite, and earning rewards in the process.

You can also earn armour skins by visiting the shrines located on the island, the theme of the shrines is flavoured by current PlayStation exclusive IPs, which is a nice touch so I will let you discover these for yourself rather than list them and spoil it for you here.  The main narrative of the story does branch off into side quests and even has a couple of new legends thrown in and overall, it should take around 15-20 hours to complete, which I think is a pretty big chunk of story for a singular DLC. The main narrative while not reaching up to the same dizzying heights as the original is still impressive in its own right and will definitely keep you interested right up to the conclusion.

One thing that is not so great about the PS5 upgrade though is that it is not free, PS5 players who own the original game are expected to pay $15 to upgrade their PS4 version of the game then an extra $29 on top of that to obtain the Iki Island DLC expansion., the DLC is definitely worth $29 by itself I just don’t understand Sucker Punch's reasoning for charging on top of that for the upgrade. If you don’t own the original game on PS4 then the director’s cut edition will set you back around $109 depending on where you shop, for a game this brilliant and packed with varied and exciting content I see that as a good deal!

As a fan of Ghost Of Tsushima I really had a great time playing through the director’s cut and Iki Island and I hope we get a couple more DLCs during the lifespan of the title, especially now we have a PS5 upgrade, If you did try the game when it originally came out and it didn’t set your world on fire then honestly there isn’t anything ground-breaking enough here to turn the game into something that you would suddenly like. For anybody who hasn’t given the game a shot though, now is the perfect time to dive in.

The Score

9.0

Review code provided by PlayStation

The Pros

+New mechanics, especially horse charging feel great to use

+Iki Island is large and there are plenty of nooks and crannies to explore

+Voice acting, writing and story is top notch

+PS5 improvements especially faster loading are fantastic

The Cons

-Locations don’t vary that much from the original

-Confusing and possibly off-putting pricing for those upgrading from PS4 version