Ghost of Tsushima: behind-the-scenes discussion with Sucker Punch’s Nate Fox [ENTREVUE]

One of the last great exclusives for PlayStation 4, Ghost of Tsushima has been the name on everyone’s lips for a few days.

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After to have tried (with great pleasure) the adventure game, Pèse sur start spoke with Nate Fox, game director at Sucker Punch Productions, to learn more about the background of the most recent title from the American studio.

After franchises Sly Cooper and InFamous, what made you want to develop a samurai game?

We were working on the franchise InFamous for a while and, for the sake of creativity, we wanted to do something completely new. Many of the people on the team are huge samurai fans, whether in the movies or in comics.

So, the idea of ​​making an open world game where we walk as a samurai in feudal Japan, it excited everyone’s imagination. We all wanted to make this game we always wanted to play.

Trying Ghost of Tsushima, different elements of the game reminded me of several other great adventure titles from recent years. In this sense, did you have any particular inspirations during development?

One of the first games that really got me going was Red Dead Redemption, the one with John Marston. They have done so well to make you feel like you are a cowboy. The characters, the story, the world, the music; it was a cowboy simulator! We wanted to do the same for the samurai.

At the start of development, I sometimes called[[Ghost of Tsushima] Red Dead Samuraï. From the moment I said that, people understood. It was going to be a mature game where you could live life [de samouraï].

Also, while we were working on the game, we were deeply struck by how much Breath of the Wild was cool. The feeling of exploration and discovery that made the huge territory come to life, because you pay attention to all the details. It certainly played a role in how we explore Tsushima and how we discover content there.

There are a number of fights in Ghost of Tsushima, but we still feel that the emphasis is on exploration. Was it a conscious choice from the start of development?

Certainly, the game is built around exploration.

We have a story that presents Jin’s transformation from samurai to ghost. Some players will however ignore it and go left when they have to go right, just to find out what’s there. It really becomes their own experience.

The wind occupies a central place in Ghost of Tsushima, since it is this one which guides you in the adventure. How did you come to put this system in place?

Very early on, we watched these classic samurai movies by Akira Kurosawa and they often put forward a lot of ambient movement in nature, like trees and swaying grass. It had a lot of impact on the framing, while we saw the samurai stand straight and look strong, because it is motionless, while the rest of the grip is in motion.

At the beginning, we made the trees and the grass move and we tried to have traditional guiding elements, but we ended up looking at the interface rather than the world.

So we tried to use the wind as a guide and it turned out to be a good decision, which worked with the other elements already in place. It tells you which way to go, but without insisting.

Were any other elements added to the game later in the process?

The combat position system arrived relatively late.

In the alpha version of the game, we felt we needed an additional level of tactical complexity in the melee system. Thus, the combat position system has been designed to add more choices in the way of facing different types of enemies.

Speaking of details, what kind of research was needed to ensure that the game was as faithful as possible to its Japanese origins?

Ghost of Tsushima is made in America by several people who have not grown up with Japanese culture. So, we knew that we were absolutely not equipped to honor the theme and the content.

So, we called on experts from different backgrounds, from religion to language, until the fight of that time. We got them involved early and used their feedback, put them in motion capture suits. Then we made the game and brought them back to give us comments, so that we can adjust.

It also helped a lot to be part of the big PlayStation family. The Japanese studios gave us a lot of advice, they took us to Tsushima Island to do research and even recorded sound sequences for us in the field.

It is thanks to all these experts who helped us that the game gives this feeling of authenticity and depth.

So far, criticism has been good from the press side in Japan. Do you fear the welcome from the Japanese community?

We always really wanted to do well for Japanese players, who are more used to the sword dramas of this era than we were on our side. We wanted to contribute to the genre, because we really liked samurai movies and comics.

On the other hand, we didn’t want to do something that could disconcert Japanese players. So when we started receiving comments from the Japanese press that said we had done a good job, it was incredible to know that we hadn’t ruined everything.

How do you feel about having produced and released one of the last exclusive PS4 headlines?

That’s great. It took us so long to make the game, so having so many good comments for something that is really different from what we were used to …

It was a real risk to develop this title, but I think it was worth it. It was certainly a pleasure to work on it, I loved playing it every day. And being there at the end of PlayStation 4 couldn’t be better. PlayStation 4 is my favorite console, it offers so many great games. I am proud to be on this list.

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