49 Fun Facts About Ghost of Tsushima

Before Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch made its name with which PlayStation platform series?

Sly Cooper, a raccoon master thief, arrived in 2002 as the studio's first game for Sony, starting the partnership that ended with Sony buying Sucker Punch in 2011.

Tsushima, the island Jin Sakai defends, lies between Japan's main islands and which country?

South Korea: Busan is only about 50 km away, which is why the Mongol fleet, sailing from Korea, struck Tsushima before any other Japanese territory.

Storms said to have wrecked the real Mongol fleets gave Japanese which word?

Kamikaze was the name folklore gave the storms said to have wrecked Kublai Khan's fleets in 1274 and 1281; centuries later it was revived for Japan's suicide pilots.

Khotun Khan is written as a grandson of which historical ruler?

Genghis Khan's real grandson Kublai sent the fleets; Khotun, written as Kublai's cousin, is invented, because the developers chose not to put real historical figures in the game.

How is Lord Shimura related to Jin Sakai?

His uncle: Shimura raised Jin as his ward and means to adopt him as heir, until Jin's methods as the Ghost lead Shimura to disown him.

Who finds and revives Jin after the disastrous battle at Komoda Beach in Ghost of Tsushima?

Yuna, a thief, nurses him back to health in hiding, then asks him to rescue her captive brother; her stealthy methods become the Ghost's.

What is the trade of Taka in Ghost of Tsushima?

Blacksmith: Taka forges the grappling hook that lets Jin scale the walls of Castle Kaneda and reach the captive Lord Shimura.

What is the name of the mercenary band led by Jin's childhood friend Ryuzo in Ghost of Tsushima?

The Straw Hats lose half their number to battle and hunger after the invasion, and it is the promise of food and a bounty that turns Ryuzo against Jin.

Which of these is one of the five great samurai clans in Ghost of Tsushima?

Clan Adachi is all but wiped out in the invasion; its sole survivor, Lady Masako, joins Jin in exchange for his help avenging her family.

Jin retakes Castle Shimura's keep by poisoning which Mongol staple?

Fermented milk, the Mongols' airag, is what Jin poisons; the keep falls without another samurai lost, but Lord Shimura condemns the act as dishonour.

Where does Jin finally kill Khotun Khan?

On his flagship at Port Izumi, where the Khan flees after losing their duel ashore; Lord Shimura's samurai, invited by a note Jin left, keep the Mongol army busy meanwhile.

At the end of Ghost of Tsushima, what does the defeated Lord Shimura ask Jin to grant him?

A warrior's death is what he asks for, and the game leaves the answer to the player: grant it, or spare him and walk away. Either way Jin ends up hunted by the shogun.

Who voices Jin Sakai in English?

Daisuke Tsuji is Jin's face as well as his English voice, while players who choose the Japanese track hear Kazuya Nakai instead.

Patrick Gallagher, the voice of Khotun Khan, drew on playing which conqueror in Night at the Museum?

Attila the Hun was a comic part, but Gallagher said its anger was true to the man; for a Khan who cannot go home having failed, he looked to The Godfather.

In Ghost of Tsushima, the Moon stance is made to beat which enemies?

Brutes are what the Moon stance is for; Jin starts with only his family's Stone stance and works out the rest by watching or killing Mongol leaders.

In Ghost of Tsushima, which combat stance is designed to break shield-carrying enemies?

Water stance exists because of them: Jin devises it in frustration when the sword techniques he has practised for decades fail against Mongol shieldmen.

In Ghost of Tsushima, what natural element guides the player to objectives instead of a compass?

Wind replaced an on-screen compass after the developers saw players staring at the icons rather than the island; a gust points the way while eyes stay on the world.

What color are the birds that lead Jin to points of interest in Ghost of Tsushima?

Yellow: the guide is a black-naped oriole, picked because it lives in Japan and the audio lead had happened to record one's song on a holiday in Sri Lanka.

Which animals lead Jin to hidden shrines in Ghost of Tsushima?

Foxes lead him to Inari shrines because the fox is held to be the messenger of Inari, the kami those shrines honour; afterwards Jin can usually pet his guide.

What do hot springs do for Jin in Ghost of Tsushima?

Raise his maximum health: each soak adds a little, and while he bathes Jin reflects on a person or event of the player's choosing.

In English, what form of poetry does Jin compose in Ghost of Tsushima?

Haiku is the label used outside Japan, chosen because the form is known worldwide; the Japanese release calls the same poems waka, a far older tradition.

Which region of Tsushima is unlocked first?

Izuhara is the island's southernmost region and the whole of the first act; Toyotama and then Kamiagata open only as the story follows the Khan north.

Which director is Ghost of Tsushima's black-and-white mode named after?

Akira Kurosawa's estate agreed to lend his name to the mode, which adds film grain and old-fashioned audio as well as draining the colour.

The ending of the samurai film Sanjuro inspired which Ghost of Tsushima combat mechanic?

Standoffs replay the film's last scene: two swordsmen face each other motionless, each waiting for the other to move first, and a single stroke ends it.

Which samurai comic influenced Ghost of Tsushima?

Usagi Yojimbo, whose hero is a rabbit, was an early spark: the game's director read the comic, about a soft-spoken swordsman who solves the troubles of any town he walks into, and thought it would make a great game.

Which earlier game, where a raised sword points the way, helped inspire Ghost of Tsushima's navigation?

Shadow of the Colossus was the model because waypoints felt like being led by the nose: its sword shows a direction, and the player still has to read the landscape to get there.

Who was the game director of Ghost of Tsushima?

Nate Fox and creative director Jason Connell were later made permanent tourism ambassadors of the real Tsushima for spreading the island's name and history.

Before settling on feudal Japan, Sucker Punch weighed a sword-fighting game about which novel's heroes?

The Three Musketeers, pirates and the Scottish outlaw Rob Roy were all on the list before an account of the 1274 invasion made the samurai idea click.

How does Jin lose the horse he named when he escapes Castle Shimura in Ghost of Tsushima?

Archers wound it fatally during the escape, and it carries Jin clear before it dies; it is the horse the player chose and named Nobu, Sora or Kage.

Ghost of Tsushima began when Sucker Punch moved on from which superhero series?

Infamous was about a superhero, so its makers listed fantasies they had not yet built and stopped at 'samurai'; the result took six years, the studio's longest project.

In Ghost of Tsushima, Jin's armor is closer to which later period's than the 13th century's?

Sengoku, the Warring States era of centuries later, gave Jin his look: real 13th-century armor was boxy and, the co-founder said, not what players picture a samurai wearing.

Despite its Japanese setting, Ghost of Tsushima was made by a studio based in which country?

The United States: Sucker Punch works from Bellevue, near Seattle, and made up the distance with a guided tour of the real island led by a historian.

Which composer wrote the main score of Ghost of Tsushima?

Ilan Eshkeri was hired on the strength of his film scores and spent months studying Japanese scales and instruments before he wrote the music.

Which Japanese lute, once learned by samurai as part of their training, features in Ghost of Tsushima's score?

Biwa: the composer learned that samurai once trained on it to sing of their exploits, called it the most warlike of instruments, and sought out the master Junko Ueda to play it.

Ghost of Tsushima's sword sounds were recorded with sword blanks first used for which other game?

God of War's leftover sword blanks were scraped, clanged, swung and hung from the ceiling to ring, and those recordings became the sound of the katana fights.

Which weapon does Sensei Ishikawa, one of Jin's allies in Ghost of Tsushima, teach as his art?

The bow is his art: Ishikawa is the island's most renowned archer, and his story with Jin is a hunt for Tomoe, the gifted pupil who turned her training to killing.

At which event was Ghost of Tsushima first revealed, in October 2017?

Paris Games Week saw only a teaser, but art director Jason Connell went off script there to promise a game with no waypoints, a pledge his team ribbed him about and then had to deliver.

Sony moved Ghost of Tsushima to July 2020 to follow which delayed game?

The Last of Us Part II took June 19 once pandemic shipping problems began to ease, and Sony moved Ghost of Tsushima from June 26 to July 17 to follow it.

What is the title of Ghost of Tsushima's co-op multiplayer mode?

Legends arrived as a free update three months after launch and trades the story's realism for Japanese myth, with supernatural enemies and otherworldly realms.

Which Ghost of Tsushima multiplayer class can summon a dog and revive teammates?

Rōnin is the healer's class: its ultimate, Breath of Izanami, revives every fallen teammate at once, and its summoned spirit dog can be petted.

Ghost of Tsushima's Director's Cut added an expansion set on which island?

Iki is where Jin's father was killed years earlier, during a failed campaign, while the boy looked on; the expansion sends Jin back to face that memory.

Ghost of Tsushima's expansion pits Jin against a Mongol shaman, Ankhsar Khatun, known by which title?

The Eagle doses her captives with a hallucinogenic 'sacred medicine', and once it is forced on Jin he is haunted by visions of his dead father.

Which studio developed the PC version of Ghost of Tsushima released in May 2024?

Nixxes, the Dutch port specialist Sony bought in 2021, handled it; days before launch, Steam pulled the game from sale in countries where PlayStation Network isn't offered.

Ghost of Tsushima earned a perfect 40/40 from which Japanese magazine?

Famitsu's four reviewers each gave it 10, and Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi was just as blunt, admitting 'we were beaten' and calling it a game that should have been made in Japan.

Ghost of Tsushima fans helped pay to rebuild what on the real island?

A torii gate at Watatsumi Shrine had collapsed in a 2020 typhoon; the priest's appeal asked for five million yen and drew more than five times that, with many players among the donors.

Who was announced in March 2021 as director of the Ghost of Tsushima film adaptation?

Chad Stahelski, the John Wick director, said in 2022 that he wanted a complete Japanese cast speaking Japanese, and that Sony was on board with the plan.

What is the title of the 2025 sequel to Ghost of Tsushima?

Ghost of Yōtei leaves Jin's story behind: it is set in 1603, some 300 years later, around a mountain on the northern island now called Hokkaido.

Who is the protagonist of Ghost of Tsushima's 2025 sequel?

Atsu is a lone mercenary hunting the outlaws who killed her family sixteen years earlier; her story is set about 300 years after Jin's and stands apart from it.

Sucker Punch's founders previously worked for which company?

Microsoft is where the founders met, and its rejects named the studio: 'Sucker Punch' came from a list of codenames too inappropriate to use there, kept after a founder's wife crossed it out.