Sony showed off the first gameplay trailer of Ghost of Tsushima, the upcoming samurai game from Sucker Punch Productions, during its E3 2018 press conference. If you thought the game was a beauty before, wait till you check it out in motion.
The nine-minute trailer takes us through Day 9 of the Mongol invasion on the island of Tsushima. The main character, Jin, hops on his horse, Nobou, and rides through a lush meadow. When Jin heads into the forest, he hears the sound of invading troops. He dismounts and we get our first glimpse at combat.
The swordplay is fast, fluid, and full of counters. While the sequences where you fight off multiple enemies look to hue closer to methodical hack and slash combat, one-on-one duels seem to be more strategic, almost like a 3D fighting game.
After Jin disposes of the enemies, he meets up with a woman named Masako, and they sneak their way up to a temple. This is where we see some stealth mechanics as Jin takes out one enemy while Masako shoots the other with her bow.
The trailer then showed off some of Jin’s more acrobatic moves, as he climbs up a building and swings with a rope to a rooftop. When he hops down toward the enemies below, the gameplay slows down, and the sequence turns into a mini-cutscene. There is a bit of a twist after Jin and Masako save the monk. Masako, acting on motives Jin didn’t know about, shoots the monk because he killed her family.
The pair, who seem to be close friends, proceed to square off in a duel. While sparring, Jin tries to persuade her to stand down. Thankfully, the friends don’t fight to the death and instead join up again when Mongol troops circle in on their location.
Based on this long sequence, Ghost of Tsushima is shaping up to be a beautiful and stylish action game from the studio behind the Infamous franchise. Ghost of Tsushima doesn’t have a release window yet, and we didn’t get any commentary from developers after the trailer ended. The gameplay trailer has us mightily excited for the PlayStation 4 exclusive.