Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Ghost of Tsushima Spoilercast - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 30

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

Ghost of Tsushima's Creative Director Nate Fox joins Greg, Blessing, and Imran to talk about all the stroy beats and building the game. Don't listen until you've beaten the game! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody. Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside the OK Beast. Blessing, Adioia, Jr. What's up, Greg? Well, I was hoping you would change the red shirt. You know, on Games Daily, when we complimented you on it, we said you look too good in the red shirt. I got too many compliments. Like, I couldn't do it because, like, when you, so right before this, actually, we got the call from Kevin and join the Discord call.

And I didn't join immediately because I wasn't wearing the red sweater. And so I was like, okay, I'm going to answer the call, but they're going to have to wait. for like a minute so I can actually put this thing on and so. I'm glad to see the power of looking good has gone to your head. Oh yeah. You're a diva about it. This is me permanently.

All right, fine. The former and former Imran, Colin. How are you, Imran? I'm doing good. I noticed the like the sacred symbols behind blessing are lit up completely. Yeah. I remember seeing them all lit up so I assume it's because he's wearing the red shirt.

They're lighting up in response to that. Oh, yeah. That's exactly the reason. It's not because Greg and Bear are making fun of the fact that they've been like intermittently lit up, not all lit up at the same time. Do you like them all lit up? Amron, do you like them all lit up? What is your opinion?

It's hard to make out what they are all lit up. Like on camera is what I'm saying. Yeah. Finally, get that up and go do it. Go ahead and go do it and alternate in between one and one. You know what I mean? What are the sacred symbols? They're the PlayStation buttons back there.

So you got your cross, your circle, your square, trying. Well, okay, I understand Nate Fox, sucker punch creative director on Ghost of Sashima. How are you? I'm very well, thank you. I'm just really interested in all of your decor. So it's going to take me a little while to soak it all in. Well, it's lucky for you that for blessing, the decor is pretty much just the sacred symbols back there.

The backpack and a butterfinger plush of cloud. Yeah, the backpack's the killer. That's what pulls the room together. You can't have it without that, Nate. My eye goes right to it. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I appreciate it. I hate you.

If you didn't know, ladies and gentlemen, this is the kind of funny gamescast. each and every week we come together to talk about the video games. We love. Today is a very, very special episode. Of course, Nate is here from Sucker Punch. We are doing our Ghost of Sashima spoiler cast. That means in just a little bit, I'm going to say, listen, gloves are off. We can spoil everything.

And that means if you haven't beaten the game yet, you should turn off this podcast and go play the game and then come back. Don't worry. This podcast is not like a loaf of bread. It will age well. You don't have to worry about it. The hot takes, the opinions, the information's going moldy. You can go take your time.

with Ghost, come to us when you're ready. But that is the deal. Of course, this is the kind of funny games cast. You can get it each and every week over on patreon.com slash kind of funny games where you can get it ad free. You can get it with an exclusive post show and you can write in like so many of you did for this spoiler cast. Remember, if you have no bucks to toss our way, it's no big deal. You can head over to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games and rooster teeth and podcast services around the globe each and every week to get a brand new episode that has ads, no post show. That's why we to go to Patreon. You don't like it. Too bad. housekeeping for you. We've launched a new podcast. You can get the Kind of Funny Xcast right now on

YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games and Podcast services. Thank you to our Patreon producers, James Hastings, Sancho West, Julian the Gluten Free Gamer, Delaney Twining, Jeffrey P. Long, Jesus Barrio, aka Bent Fork PR, Skin Tight Salmon, Game Jumper X, and Mohamed, Mohamed, aka Momo. Today, we are brought to you by ExpressVPN and Purple Mattress, but I'll tell you about that later. For now, let us begin the Ghost of Sashima spoiler cast. This is your chance. Get out now.

Pause the podcast if you haven't beaten Ghost of Sashima yet. Okay. Now it's go time. Nate, you motherfucker killing that horse. I swear to God, dude. When Nobu got shot a bunch with the arrows, I was like, Oh, that sucks. And then when we kept going and he kept limping and go like, oh my God, don't do this.

Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. And you did it. So first of all, you said no boo. Mine was Kage. That's what about me your blessing. My second one was. I had, I had Sora.

And so this is a whole interesting experience because I remember. Go ahead. Well, actually, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, was sore because I then changed to Kage. But Kevin, who's also playing in the game, it's part kind of funny, was hanging out at my place. and I was playing I was playing ghost as he was sitting in my place setting up my new

my new PC that I'm rocking with and I was playing with Kage who was my second horse and Kevin was like oh you went with the you went with the black horse named him Kage and I was like yeah because I realized Kevin hadn't made that for you I was like yeah

I sure did yeah Nate when when does that kind of decision happen like I obviously I want to talk about the entire journey of creating this game moving from, you know, infamous to this. But for something like that, that we're,

I think we were talking about this earlier on the review too, or maybe it was PS I love you. But playing that game and being like, okay, yeah, I'm into the story and this is great, blah, blah, blah, but it's, you know, it's not like a last of us where it's going to make me cry or do anything that. Like, I tell the story of after no, I buried nobu, Jen came out of her office and was just like, all right, so yeah,

this just happened and blah, blah, blah, blah. And she looked at me, she's like, what's wrong? And I'm like, baby, they kill me. they killed the horse. And she immediately went, they killed Nobu? And I was like, how do you know the name?

She's like, I don't know any of the character's names in this game. But if I, there's an animal in this game, I know the animal's name. I know Nobu. She's like,

immediately he was just like, Pordy. I'm like, as soon as the horse died in the game, I caressed Porty. I started petting 40. Like, when do you decide you're going to fuck up

our feelings like that? Well, you know, it kind of takes a while to build a relationship with somebody so that when you, did you hurt him like that, It gets a response. And who's better, more faithful, more of a friend than your horse who will show up when you're getting chased by Mongols?

And it seemed like the right thing to do to show that Jin was at his absolute lowest as he got ditched by his uncle. And he was on his own. And what would be worse than that losing your best friend? So it was to put him in that absolute darkest portion of the night so that he could come out. bit the other side. Did you guys, and I know that obviously as we're recording this, streams are just starting to happen. The game's just getting out into the public's hand.

I know I've talked to other reviewers. People have seen that. I don't know if you've had conversations with that. In play testing, in your own office, in the little bit you've seen, did you expect it to be as impactful as I think it was as we think it is? I definitely think that any time you particularly wound an animal, it's really impactful emotionally. It's super weird than in video games, killing humans,

you have no emotional reaction to it by and large. You're so conditioned to it in modern video games. But animals, it's a different story altogether. And so when we decided that we would kill your horse who you named and you picked so that you have some level of kind of ownership over that animal, who's been really your best friend, we did it. so that you would have that reaction. That's why at the end of most missions,

you see him sleeping on his horse or petting it, interacting with it, just to create that bond. Yeah. That's what I thought was, shortly after Taka died. I was like, oh, no, Taka died. It was like, that's sad,

but then the horse died. It was like, oh, hmm, why did the horse die? The horse got more like, more of like an emotional scene, I feel like than even Taka did. Like, Taka, of course, had the whole mission, right? that went down and the way Taka went,

oh, we're gonna have to talk about that soon because that was kind of a heartbreaker for me. But when it was the horse, that's when I started getting flashbacks of Shadow Colossus, actually. Spoilish for Child Colossus also. Did you guys have any, like, inspiration from that? Or was there any, like, thought of, oh, yeah, like, we've had this in games before,

but is there a way we could actually further this and make it unique to Ghost? It was very much just us trying to look at who Jin had a really powerful relationship. relationship with and it's the horse. I mean, I really like the character of Taka and Taka's death is definitely turning point when Jin just turns up the gas and says, I'm going to do whatever it takes to drive these Mongols out. But the horse is, I think, more personal just because the horse doesn't talk to other characters and it doesn't have some relationship with the unit. It's just your pal, your pet, your friend. And so

when it passes, it's it's a much more quiet and much more intimate moment. Yeah, I think one of the things that stood out to me afterwards and reflecting on it is what you already talked about, but I think you guys do it so well of building that relationship, but never beating us over the head with it, where it's, you know, a gameplay element obviously of, you know, calling for your horse, getting on your horse going. But then like you're saying, of coming out of a mission and being sleeping on it or, you know, when he like, noses you while you're like sitting there posing and he like bumps you and you're like all right calm down or whatever we saw this like nonverbal friendship continue and grow and then even while i'd be on missions right it would be conversations with him of just like oh you're a good horse and you know

one day we'll go for a quiet ride and there were all these you know jinn was able to express himself without ever having to have a scene with you know euner whoever is just like oh i love my horse and he's so good and i'd be lost without him and yada yada yada it was just like you did such a great job of building that relationship. One thing that was a bit of a challenge making the game was that the main character is a samurai and he needed to be kind of a rule following samurai at the beginning of the game, which meant pretty stoic, right? And the guy we hired grown up in Japan and he keeps it pretty straight laced for the first,

you know, half of the game. And that makes it a little harder to get in and understand. him emotionally because he's so stoic. But the one, like, clear way he always could kind of break through that was when he was being really kind to animals, in particular, his horse, because he didn't need to be strong for anyone. He was just talking to his friend, the horse, who's an animal. And that's something we kind of pushed on because it gives a little light into

Jin Sakai in his relaxed state when no one's looking. looking when he can just be himself. I actually kind of ended up resenting the transitionary horse between the first horse in the second. Because like Jin wasn't saying those like nice things. So I kind of it fed back to me of like no fuck this horse. This isn't my horse.

Plus it's all scrawny and like weird back legs. Did you pick the scrawny horse when you because you could have chosen to stay with the broken Charlie Brown Christmas tree horse. Wait, hell no. Good. Yeah. I didn't realize that. Oh yeah. I actually. I assume. a lot of people are going to be like, well, it's broken down and it's ugly, but it's my ugly.

No, I went for a little bit. Big white stallion as soon as I could. Yeah, me too. When that option popped up, that's where I went. I started with all black nobu, and then, yeah, I went to all white on the second time with Kagge. I try to make kind of like almost a narrative parallel decision to where, because I started off with Sora, who was the white horse. And when it came down to that decision, I kind of thought about it in the way of, okay, well, Jin is going from Samurai to the Ghost, right? He's going from like this, this honorable

warrior to now becoming this essentially Batman kind of thing. And so I was like, you know what, man? I'm going to pick the black horse, and I'm going to call it Kagay for Shadow because I feel like this represents where I'm at right now, which I thought was like a really cool thing in terms of the choice you're given there as a player to kind of dictate

what your future is going to be. I made the opposite choice but for the same reasons of for me, I knew I was going to become the ghost at some point. So I was like, okay, I'll choose a black horse named Kagay like a very ninja like thing at first because it's kind of like a you know obviously the metaphor is yin yang for me and then once kage died and i had to choose on the horse like okay well i want to hold on to a bit of the old Shimura Sakai Jin so i'm going to choose a white horse named uh nobu because it seemed more samurai to me sure and yeah that i think we're starting

to play around with one of the themes we've talked a lot about in both the review and then p.s i love you right of this Jin's journey of going from Samurai to being ghost and how I don't know how much you've you know you said you watched some of the review if not all of it and then I was talking on PS I love you Nate

like I was so impressed when it was all said and done that being a big sucker punch fan being a huge infamous fan right like I'm used to making the choice of is this my good or bad play through and then going that way and for you guys to eliminate the morality system of it but

still play with the idea of it where we started and Jin was very and his uncle were very upfront about what samurai were and that you know you address it head on and like you know when you know originally is like oh we should do thief things and you're like no no way whatever I played the game that way and felt guilty when I would do the ghost like things until the moment we're talking about right where it is gloves off I am the ghost you know I mean when I told uncle that I am the ghost that's what's happening like from there on out I that's when I immediately died all my clothes black and I

I'm like, I'm stealthing everything from here on out. I'm like, I don't even need standoffs. I thought that was so impressive that you did all that without, again, beating me over the head with it or making it a gameplay. Well, you should play this way because you'd get this, you know, better gear weapons, whatever, like if we're talking about infamous and, you know, doubling down on those choices and building that character. Is that something you were consciously doing?

Or is that something that we're reading into it knowing your past work? Well, the transition of Jin struggling to go away from his code, go away from the man he always thought he would be, to become the ghost for the greater good, right, to save his home and the people he loves. That's the narrative spine of the story. And one of the things that we tried to do that is a little bit different than we've done in the past is have the player participate in that transformation by. upgrading and choosing abilities that allow them to become more and more of that ghost-like character. As you go through the upgrade tree and as you get new abilities, Jin becomes more capable of terrifying enemies. He becomes more capable of moving smoothly where Mongols can't see him and just assassinating them. And the enemies get to be such a big number that it really is pretty...

it's the way to go. And so the player is participating. They're interactively doing the same thing that Jin is. So yeah, it was absolutely on purpose. We wanted you to experience Jin's transformation, not just get told about it. And so reading reviews, you know, and hearing criticism so far of it, right?

Like I've seen some people talk about how, oh, well, it's got a slow start. And I personally didn't feel that way. I was along for the ride. But were you ready for that? Did you understand that? Again, the title's the ghost of Sashima, right? And even when I was reviewing it and I was mentioning like,

oh, there's this moment where what's the name of the game, you become the go, like, right, you have to embrace that identity at some point. Did you think there'd be a push and pull between people who wanted to play it just as a samurai, people who didn't understand they were going on this journey or wouldn't see it to that part? Well, I mean, the beginning. In a game as big and as complex as Ghost of Tsushima, there's a lot that people need to come to grips with. And there's the narrative setup.

There's the different kind of ways in which you fight. And the fighting is not crazy simple. And kind of understanding how you move around the world. So I think in that first day of play, people are just figuring out how they can interact with the world. And that can be quite a lot to take in given the scope of the game. and then once you get your feet underneath you, who doesn't want to be a samurai, right? That's the, to me, that's the major appeal of the game.

Being a samurai in the open world is the X factor for me that drove myself and so many other sucker punchers to want to make this title. So, yeah, I could totally imagine that people get in, they're acting as a samurai, and they don't instantly want to let go of that to become the goal. ghost. It takes a little while. Sure. So then talk to me about how this does start. Let's go way back,

right? Because you do infamous, uh, uh, second son, right? You do first light. Uh, and both are set in the most familiar territory possible of Seattle, right? Where you guys are. You're up there in Bellevue. You're doing something close to home. It's your third infamous game. You guys finish that. You finish the fetch stuff. Is there? the idea to do infamous for? Is there an idea to do something radically different? Like, where does ghost start? Where were you guys at when you finished all of the infamous stuff?

When we finished Infamous, we were just pretty ready to do something new. I mean, we've been at it for so long. So the company pitched in a lot of ideas and working on an open world samurai game was just the most alluring. When we came upon the Mongol invasion of, of Susha Island in 1274, it really set up an excellent external conflict that it was easy to understand why you wanted to fight, why going around the world was worthwhile. And it just felt like a natural fit with that wandering samurai fantasy.

Mitchell from Canada. You hold your horses. All right. You want to hold your horses? Mitchell from Canada deserves the floor. wrote into patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games and says, I have a question for Nate Brocks from Sucker Punch. Where did the idea to take the studio on this bold new direction

rather than taking the safe route of a new infamous game come from? Mainly, what made you feel that Jin's story was a story that needed to be told? Did you start with the idea for the story or simply the idea of a samurai game and build around that? Selfishly, I'd also like to know

if Sucker Punch has any interest in returning to infamous in the future, or if you're interested in new things. I know that Greg's a fan of those games too, but there's still lots of posts showing up on PlayStation subredits about the series. Thanks for your question if you do and have a good day. Mitchell from Canada. So for Mitchell's question, yeah, you talk about you, the samurai game idea gets tossed out in this company kickaround.

You look at Sashima, that's great. Where does Jin fall into it? Like what made you feel that his was the story or how did you get that part of it? So like maybe the next day, you know, we're talking about let's do an open world samurai game. And I've been looking at this history and the invasion. And the elevator pitch

for the story is a samurai has to give up his code and become a new type of warrior in order to save his island home from Mongol invaders. So in that sentence, which we had really early, I mean, at the beginning, we knew what the arc

was going to be for the hero character. And definitely the samurai fantasy came for but right next to that was this idea that Jin was going to become something more than just a samurai. He was going to become the ghost. So that there was this feeling of

a personal sacrifice. Blessing Anna E. Jr. Yeah, I was going to ask, what was the transition like between creating a world like the infamous games where it does feel more, the world feels more like a playground as opposed to

what we have in Ghosts, which is more explorable and feels more vast and expansive and feels like something you're uncovering as you're going along as opposed to Infamous that feels more like, hey, we're creating this world so you can have fun as you jump around and beat bad guys and use your abilities and all these things. So in Infamous, we built cities that were jungle gyms. They're meant to be climbed and jumped and swung on and, you know, you can interact with them in all these different ways. And for Ghost of Sushimah, we wanted to make a landscape that was a wrapped Christmas present. that you saw something on the hill

and you thought, what is that? I'm going to check it out. So it was about rewarding curiosity, unlike building a jungle gym, which was just the physical act of zooming and grinding and doing all these kind of skateboard tricks with your superpowers.

Sushma is very, very different. It is a much more contemplative. It's more about looking at the world and feeling what's out there versus just the immediacy of being able to turn on your pocket. and zip around with dynamic action. What was the thing that drove that change?

Like, why did you guys decide that was the direction you wanted to go? Well, we wanted to make a grounded samurai game in the mold of the classic samurai films that we really admired. Seven samurai being the real heavy hitter as well as Jojimbo. And these are games where people don't zip around with superpowers, right? They're humans on horses who walk into town. and they solve problems with their wits and their sword arm, and that's it. So trying to be true to the source material really is huge.

In that vein, you kind of mentioned history a little bit. So I ended up reading, when I found I was going to review the game, I ended up reading about the Mongol invasion of Sushima and all that. The story in the game is fictitious, I guess? Yes, that is. But in the actual history, Samurai, the Mongol's mostly got wiped out by a storm. When I finished the game,

and this may be like my brain just rushing for interpretation, but I was like, oh, was it just, that's what Japan told people because they didn't want people to know about gin? Or was that just like not even a thought in Tucker Punch? Well, because you know what the real history is,

I bet you saw a lot of what was going on. The end of the game, actually, there is a storm, a huge wind that comes in that forces all the Mongol boats into a bay, that gives Jin this opportunity to slay them all. On top of that, Jin's kind of spiritual connection to the island is largely referenced by wind, this divine wind,

that is playing into kamikaze as well. If you look at his saya on the Sakai steel, there's lightning and storm winds on it as well. This is all referencing the real event that took down the armada. even though in our fictional story it is Jin and Shimora and a lot of people risking themselves to destroy the Mongols

if you know the history you can see the connection I didn't know that that's awesome that makes so much sense right the real historical things this storm coming in and then on the same night obviously you guys gin strikes or whatever that makes a lot of sense in terms of history of meeting fiction

So I got to actually go for it. Just an example. Our game certainly takes inspiration from history, but it is not historically accurate. Our version of Tsushima is not stone for stone the same place. It's got a lot more diversity and elevation change that is very friendly for a video game and very friendly for trying to reproduce a cinematic samurai movie feel. But those kind of nods to what happened in time and what was happening culturally were really important to us for a feeling of authenticity.

So the question I was going to throw out there has to do with the ending of the game. And like mainly the choice to have the choice, you know, as in of whether you want to go the route of slaying your uncle in honor or letting your uncle live. That was a choice for me. When I got there, I was shocked that you guys were going that route because, you know, up to this point, it felt like you guys were giving us the story you wanted to tell us, where once I got there, I was like, oh, this is interesting. I wonder how this reflects for possible future games in the franchise if you decide to have a decision that might split what the ripples are going to be coming forward.

Is that something that you guys thought about at all? Or was this really a thing where you guys were like, hey, we want people to be able to own the gin that they're playing in their story? Well, we knew we wanted to tell one story, and that was that transformation. from samurai to ghost. And a little bit by little bit, Jin is letting go of that old self-concept of who is going to be, even at the expense

of his relationship, and he loves most his uncle. So you get to the very, very end, and we haven't given you these choices like this in the narrative, because we're telling this one story. And now we're at the end, and it is time to put a period on the sentence. And I wanted to give players a moment

where they had to own it. They had to say, yeah, I'm going to actively participate in this story. I'm going to be the ghost. I'm going to reject tradition. My uncle's begging me to kill him. If you care about your uncle, if you love your uncle, you're going to do what he asks,

or you're going to say, I turn my back and all that. It doesn't matter to me anymore. I'm going to leave you alone. And so by giving you that one choice, it's to bring the transformation solidly home. Do you feel like there was a right answer? So what did you choose? Yeah, I want to know whatever he shows.

I chose to let him live because I feel like at this at that point for me the way I interpreted Jen right like I mean he'd spent all this time essentially backing away from samurai tradition and becoming his own his own person and really seeing the value of hey we don't necessarily have to live by these these stringent ideals like we can essentially act in ways that that are going to better us and better our people despite being against tradition and so for me Jen in that moment, the way I saw it, wouldn't have killed his uncle. Like for me, he would have, that was the last step into backing away from that samurai tradition. Imran, what did you do?

Say his blessing, but my reasoning was exactly what Jin said after, actually. It was, I'm not going to kill my family. Like, the long and short of that whole journey for me was he doesn't care about tradition or honor. He cares about what the people around him are actually doing. staying alive. For me, it was interesting because when the choice popped up, I thought it was such an easy one. I was like, oh, well, you know, the whole game, whatever is this. And I am the only person I've talked to who killed him.

It popped up and I'm like, my uncle is a slave tradition. Like, I'm going to give him this. I'm going to give him this. This is what he wants. I know this is what he wants. This has been, but we have no relationship anymore. He wanted to fucking fight me to the death. You know what I mean?

Like this is what he wanted and I don't agree with it, but I got to go my own way anyway. So yeah, I sat. I got kneeled right in front of him to caught my little sword, stabbed them. And he thanks me. And I'm like, all right. I did the right thing here. Mission accomplished. And your ending, does he, I assume he yells at you, right?

And like you, you, you, you, you. I don't know, what is that? He's mostly upset that like, he's like, it will never stop. People are always going to pursue you. He's like, yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. Nate, what did you pick?

To you, what's your true ending? So the true ending would be Jin leaving his uncle alive and saying, I don't care about your rules. I'm past that now. I'm something else. I'm the ghost. However, my personal Nate Fox's emotional response when I play the game is I kill him every time. The reason why is because I like him. And ironically, liking him means you should kill him.

That is another thing I think we didn't talk about in the review, obviously, because it wasn't for spoilers. But I really, really dug the relationship between Jin and his uncle. And it was that, you know, when I was doing the early stuff and I was doing some of the assassination stuff and some of the ghost stuff, I was like, this isn't going to go over well with my uncle. And sure enough, you know, Kahn's like, you know, teasing him that, oh, yeah, you know, he's already, Jin would never do that, blah, blah. And then when he saw me do some of the assassin stuff, he's like, I don't like that. I'm like, all right, cool. And then we did the terrifying thing holding up his head.

He's like, Jim, what are you doing? And then like when we actually have the break, like, I thought it was all, you know, accredited to your cast so well acted and so well written of, you know, turning around with the adoption papers in his hands and like tossing them into the fire and having this, you know, irreparable damage done. And then having to sneak out of your own camp where everybody loves you and seeing your relationship deteriorate with Uncle and then getting to fight against Uncle at the very end, even though he shows up to help or whatever. It's like I'm with you that it's one with that rare thing where in any story, let alone a video game, I feel like we get to that fight and I'm like,

I don't agree with how we got here. I clearly don't agree with you on what you're saying, but I still love you. Like I still dig you. Like I know what you're all about and I understand why there's this chasm between us that you can't cross with me. And that's why I will kill you. It was kind of interesting to me.

Like I had not played last of us by the time I played this game. But I had known enough about the game that I knew that. that the gist of it was, don't let revenge consume you. And then I started playing this, and this game was like, fuck yeah, revenge.

Like, get as much revenge as you possibly can. So it was like the proximity of these two games coming out where Jin is very much, not lauded by society, but like lauded by his own inner group for doing what it takes to quell this invasion

is on it, like, it's a bit funny, but like really interesting to me about how those two come inside. For me, it's interesting you call it revenge. never thought of it that way. For me, always was we were at war. We were trying to liberate

the island. And it, and it is that thing. It reminded me of like when we learn about, and, you know, when I don't even know, blessing you're younger than me, I don't even teach American history anymore. But when we would learn about the revolutionary war, right, and how it was that, you know, the colonists rebelling or whatever, they just refused to fight in like the single file lines, like the British were fighting. And that's why we were able to do it. Like, that is how I kept trying to explain the story to people that I was like, well, yeah, you know, this island, Samarized, they know how to fight this very traditional and respectful way, but the Mongols come in and they're not about that. So it's like, literally the, you know, the crux in the very beginning

of it are like, do you die by tradition or do you evolve into something that might be a monster as well? And so on that journey, I never was thinking about it as a revenge thing as much as I was thinking about trying to get these people off my land, get out of my country. For me, it was like the moment it was revenge was Yunna's side quest. where the granted those were against Japanese people but like it was specifically we were kicking those three brothers and you were taking off their heads

I was like oh this is straight up just revenge is great yeah that's true that'll give you okay I will say I did I did as I was playing ghosts it's tough because they're so close in proximity to each other but I was also having that last this conversation in my head too of like oh yeah that game is making such a statement on revenge and on violence and video games in particular

and as I was playing through ghosts I was like oh snap this is making I mean definitely there are different observations in ghosts and there's a totally different direction as far as what what ghost has to say about violence and about war and about revenge and all these different things.

But for me it was like all right, what is honorable, what's not honorable, and when is it worth it to not be honorable? Which is why I found, I found the uncle character so interesting because there was no point in the story for the uncle character,

well, let me not say no point. There are very few points in the story with the uncle character where I was like, he's being too harsh or where I was like, I don't get where he's coming from. Like, for the most part, I was like, okay, this guy's making some good points. Like, at what point do we become a monster?

Like, at what point, you know, is the, at what point are we stooping down to their level? You know, especially when Jin starts to use things like poison for war and all this stuff. And so I found that dynamic super interesting. And I found that, like, I was pretty satisfied with where we got toward the end, where I was expecting toward the end of Act 1 for Jin's uncle to turn on him because you did have Jin captured

or not Jim, you had the uncle captured by the Mongol leader and I can't remember his name. He's the Khan essentially. Cocoa Khan. Yes. He was telling the uncle that like, hey, yeah, your nephew's out here stabbing our men

in their backs and doing all these different things. And he would never do that. Yeah, he was like Jim would never do that. I was thinking that that clash would happen earlier in the story. And so to see that you get towards, you get past act one and you see them kind of confront it, but then be like, like the uncle's like,

all right, you did what you did to save me, but this stops now. Like we were going to fight honorable going forward. And to see that continue and continue. I thought that was very, I thought that was very compelling and very satisfying to see that like toward the end,

that's where we actually like, that's where lines are drawn and they're like, all right, we can't do this anymore. yeah i i i was with you blessed i was worried that yeah it was going to be con would tell him that i would show up to save them and that's when there'd be this big blow up between us in a relationship i already kind of i liked you know from the little bit i had seen so i was happy you didn't do that mate good job when we were casting shimora the scene that we wrote

um was effectively um a scene we've all seen before where a father finds like a bag of marijuana and the kids drawer. Yeah. Can you guys hear me? Yeah. You did a little weird thing and I think your image

might have froze for a second. Right now it's like in the middle of an awesome drum solo. Oh yeah. Right back. Okay. All right. Great.

So you know that moment where a dad's like, what is this? Are you smoking dope? I need you to be better than this. You can be better than this. This is not, there's no future.

in this, you know, and the kid's like, ah, it's no big deal. Of course, Jun's the guy, no big deal. Yeah, they'll talk like that. But it was, it was, he finds that he had some, some poison that he had been using. And the tone was just a father who's trying to save his son from going down the drain, even though it's not the, he, he wants to redeem his son in the format that he believes is the most important. And Shemora even is a way of talking about the repercussions of doing these sort of things. You know, if you unleash poison and give it out to everybody, that means that chaos is going to take over the island, that anyone could just

put a little bit in somebody else's drink and it's just lawlessness. And so it's not, there are reasons for rules in society. Part of that, of course, is just, keeping the people in power and power, which is sort of a counter argument. In some ways, the samurai are the bad guys of the game, really, because they're trying to defend the status quo in that last third. And Jin is saying, what's more important, the status quo are everyone's freedom. And that's where the clash comes in. Something I found interesting, and it was something I felt early on,

but definitely by the end, I believe. Maybe it's my own interpretation. But, you know, we talked about you guys. finished infamous and you're like we just need to do something that's not infamous even talking about it here with the poison talking about the character development talking about becoming the ghost did you at any point stop and go oh man we're making another comic book game we're making we're making a superhero game here right because like you know tam from game spot put up the thing today like this is just a batman game and i was like i love it and it was him spinning the camera the cape and the wind

like it i saw so many pangs of the comic book stuff we've talked about before about infamous here of this storytelling of, you know, you think you're doing the right thing, but that actually makes your villains, right? And that being with the poison here, that, you know, gin introduces this, but then it starts to get mass produced and it's going to be used all over the place. You know, the battle between him and his father, the abilities you do get. Did, is somebody who honestly, I think, or not even think, knows that I had no affection.

I also didn't hate it or anything, but I had no love for samurai genre before this. Now I do, and I want to get a list of stuff from you. by the end of this show to go watch or read, to get to the end of this and have it me be like, oh man, this was a Batman story. Like, Jin, for me, feels like Batman. Is that just a hero's tale to you, Nate? Is that something you think you brought over from infamous?

Is that just something that samurai stories are that I didn't know? No, I don't think that's common to Samurai stories. This sort of transformation from Samurai to Ghost is, it's not intentionally meant to be a superhero-feeling story. It's meant to just be one of transformation. There is this idea of who you are. We knew you wanted to be a samurai first, right? And then who's the ghost?

The ghost is somebody who uses fear as a weapon. He's somebody that goes beyond the traits and the skills and the moral boundaries. boundaries that a samurai is. And also is like a larger than life figure to the people of the island, sort of a tall tail. Yeah. And that transformation, becoming this larger than life person, is something that I think would

happen in the year 1274. If you really slew 300 Mongols, people would think that lightning bolts would shoot out of your eyes, that you could breathe fire, that you're an inhuman monster. And that is how you're meant to feel. that the people of the island start thinking of you as larger than life. The Mongols, if they see you kill one of their brothers, they fall over and they run because they're so scared of the ghost. It's not really a superhero story, but it is one of you becoming legendary in this very

small world of Tsushima Island. Yeah, and I think you do that so well. Plus, I made all the infamous game, so maybe I just can't help but do it. No, honestly, one of the, I think the funniest, moments in the game is such a throwaway line on, I think it's a side quest. If not, it's just, you're with a bunch of dudes running on a mission or whatever. And at some point, one of them puts together that you're the ghost. And he's like, oh my God, you're the ghost. And Jen's like, yeah, some people call me that. And he's like, but you're not 10 feet tall. You're not shooting

a fire out of your eyes or whatever. And I was like, oh, my God, I love that that little bit of it, right? Speaking of being larger than life, I would be remorse if I did not ask this, what was up with the tangu? Was that an actual tango or was that a person in a tangu mask? Because I genuinely do not know. Ah, right. This is the demon longbow mission. Yes.

When you get the bow, you are meant to be drugged. And this is your hallucination. Now, but the thing is, is that everybody on this island believes in these things. So while this is a completely grounded game, from Jinn's point of view, that was real. Okay. Right? Because he's kind of tripping, right? And this dude in the Tingo mask has been haunting him this whole time, right?

Threatening him. He looks kind of scary. And then he comes at him while Jin's kind of in the state. And unto Jin, this is a real event. But, you know, it is a man in a mask. So you mentioned it was grounded. And like that was one of the thing that's, as I was playing that game, I kind of, like, years of samurai video games kind of factored into my head of like, I'm kind of waiting for the drop of when the.

mythical aspects of it have like kind of come in. Even though I knew this is not that kind of game, I had just played Neo. I had played every other video game about a samurai in my life, and those always have some degree of like Yokai or something. At what point did you decide like, no, we're not doing that for this one. This is just a samurai human story.

From the very beginning, we were not going to have any monsters. It's just because we wanted to go after that classic samurai movie experience. Simple as that. So with this game being a samurai game, what does representation look like as far

as people working on it? Because I know a lot of the cast, or if not, I mean, probably all the cast are like Asian representative, right? Yes. Was there people, were there people on like the writing team or on the development team that, you know, were also either Japanese or Asian or people that you guys consulted with

where that came into play with the same right aspects of the game? Sure. Well, we definitely wanted to have all Asian cast for sure. It was that many people of Japanese descent as possible, particularly if they had some cultural knowledge of how to stand or how to kind of interact with one another in a way that would deliver a feeling of authenticity. But to create the feeling of authenticity from day one,

one, all of us at sucker punch, who were raised inside of an American kind of cultural backdrop. We knew we were just going to fail at that. Absolutely. So we had to reach out to experts who came in to tell us about religious beliefs at the time, costumes, how people held their swords, how do you use their swords, mannerisms? Fortunately, we're members of the PlayStation family. So Japan Studios was super duper helpful to us. They took us on research trips to Tsushima Island and around Japan itself to do things like look at how blacksmithing worked at the time. And they even went so far as to do audio recordings for us for like deer and insects.

Having these experts come in early and repeatedly while we're making the game telling us where we're going wrong, that was key. And without them, we would have not been able to produce the level of authenticity we did. And while, you know, it's not perfect by any stretch. It's us doing our damnedest to try to do right by people who are very familiar with these period sword drama films. So that when they play the game, they're not kind of tossed out of it by something being off. When the idea gets going and you to kick them all around and that gets thrown out there, was there a knee-jerk reaction of maybe we shouldn't try doing that because it is so far from what we know?

Because again, like, you know, the last game is in Seattle. You can look out your window for reference material, right? Whereas this one is across the globe in another country, in another hemisphere, like all these different parts to it. Like, or was it you wanted that level of challenge from the get-go? He just wanted to play an open world samurai game. You're like nobody else. He's waiting for somebody to make.

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's how game makers make their choices. What do they want to play? And just one of the hurdles for, making this game is like being real up front about what you don't know just being honest and so we went into it with eyes open knowing that our little community of sucker punch was inadequate to doing this and you know i'm so glad like we'd be down on the mocap stage doing a scene and we had a motion advisor there on every shoot and we'd be blocking in a scene and i wouldn't know when she would tap me on the

shoulder but she would all the time and say uh that's not how they'd be holding their soft She'd show us, show the actors, and then we'd all hold it the way she told us, trying to always do it right. And it's not clear when you're going to go wrong. So you really have to have somebody there with you, you know, holding our hand to make it feel correct. Did you end up doing a bunch of independent research and by independent research, I mean watch a bunch of samurai stuff?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely you've watched a lot of samurai movies. and read a lot of samurai comics. Do you guys ever read the comic Usagi Yo Jimbo? Mm-hmm. I haven't. Yeah. Is that one I got to put?

Is that one of the ones? Oh, man. I love Osagi O Jimbo. So the guy who wrote that, Stan Sakai, the name of Jin Sakai is because I love those comics so much. They are loosely based off my Matamata Musashi's kind of wand. And I started reading them when I was working on dialogue for the Sly Cooper series because Usagio Jimbos about Anthropamorifies animals, except for they treat each other with the utmost

respect. And I just really got into it. So I would recommend that. Okay. It was definitely like, how I even get on to that. Sorry, I started talking about Usagia. I get super sick. As somebody, I've watched a bunch of samurai TV shows and stuff like Osamao Jibu and like, Tisagio

Jimbo and like Tizuka's old manga and stuff like that. And this game definitely seemed inspired by that in the sense of the episodic side quest of like you go somewhere there's a title card and you like you do the thing like a lone wolf and cub where they would just kind of water into a town solve the thing and then they'd go on to the next town. So was that all a direct inspiration? Absolutely. I was just looking at. Oh yeah. See? I just have it right by my. No. Yeah. Without question. it's it's perfect right the wandering samurai goes into towns there's always some trouble brewing and they they take care of business it's it's very friendly to an open world format right

shout out to all these being on comicsology unlimited too we're not sponsored but hey that's cool 10 bucks i can watch read all this stuff that's great putting it on my list here my cart um So in that vein then, is that how you looked at your side quests? Like when you know, like you said, from basically your day two, right? You have the sentence of what's going to happen and what this journey is. You can see the arc virgin there. Is it then how, yeah, you want to pull from something like Long Wolf and Cub like Imran's talking about for your side quest that you come in and it's going to be this contained thing for the most part, unless it's one of the obviously character tales that's going on with like Sensei or whatever. But the other ways around it is you wanted it to be just this.

here's this episode. Here's like a taste of what's happening on the island. Absolutely. I like to think of the game like a tree. So you've got Jin's transformation story, which is like the trunk. Then there are these branches that come off of it, which are the tales that you've,

the characters you meet along the way, Lady Masaco, Sense Ishikawa. And then there are other branches that come off of that are their own stories. And it's meant to be an anthology of stories in the game. It's not really just gin story. Gin story is a fractionally small part of it. We built the game with the idea that there would be other things going on and that that would actually be the more important thing for you to deal with

so that players would find themselves just going off over the hill and getting lost in Tsushima. I think it works. It's funny you guys mentioned being paranoid of the uncle before because I was paranoid of everybody else that they were going to betray me at some point. So in Masako did betray me. I knew it. I knew it.

I knew it was going to happen. Then they got over it real quick. But like the entire time with Ishikawa, I was like, what is his deal? What is he not telling me? It turned out he just didn't tell me things because he's a cranky old man. So were there other open world games that you guys look to as inspiration for how you're going to structure this one? Because I know for me, as I was playing through, I was like, man, I'm getting fuels of like breath of the wild. I know Imron was referencing like Witcher a lot and Assassin's Creed.

lot and like were there games that you guys were like all right these are these these are what we see as you know the the quintessential open world games the open world games that we love that we we took after right so the two games that i'd say are most impactful when we started uh the game red red red dead redemption did in my opinion just a magnificent job letting players into the boots of an outlaw cowboy it felt like a cowboy simulator the costumes Marston's story, the environments, the music, it put you there in that environment. And I felt like it wasn't just about his story, but there were a lot of stories to find all around the Old West.

So early on, when I'd be pitching people and trying to get them excited about the game, I'd just say, look, we're making Red Dead samurai. And then instantly people would get it. They would say, oh, yeah, all right, I get it. I'm going to be a samurai and we're going to reproduce the feel of feudal Japan. oh, let's make it. So that was absolutely a cornerstone for us in making this game. The next one is totally Breath of the Wild,

this idea that the landscape has an incredible character and mystery to it, and there's a feeling of personal agency of just saying, I'm going to ignore what this game might be telling me to do. I'm going to do what I want to do, and the game will reward you for that. Another game that I think does this really well is Skyrim. I couldn't even tell you what the main plot Skyrim is because I constantly get lost in all of the things to do. And I love the game for it.

It's amazing. That's why our game is meant to be an anthology of stories, not just jamming down Jen's transformation arcs. Yeah, I think, you know, people who want a golden path that I think lose a lot for that, right? Like, I think that for even I, you know, I think, I was reading a sub-brent thread that maybe I haven't been representing myself as well as I thought I was in some of it. But like, even for us where when it came time for me like oh man the reviews coming up i need to turn on the jets and actually make sure i'm playing the thing like it didn't lose something for me but i loved so much that first week with the game where i was like i'm just going to do everything or anything and you know ride in one direction and think i'm going to where this question mark over here but then

you know uh the bird passes and i'm like oh wait where's this isn't going the same direction i'll follow that to something brand new that i didn't know is over here yeah totally do you guys ever go on vacation to a city, you know, before quarantine that you don't know. And you don't have a plan. You just start walking because you're in like Rome or something. And you're like, I think I'll have a coffee. And you go in a coffee and you come out and you see something down the way and you just, you just go where your feet take you. Yeah. I find that to be the most fun. Like it is that it is real world video games for me. And I think in Ghost of Sushima, when you have the experience that you just described Greg where the bird takes you over here and then you see a

column of steam from a hot spring and then but on the way somebody's yelling out for help and you just kind of pinball from one thing to another that's that's where the games at it's best because it's solidly just your your choices is that where the the dietic stuff came from as far as you know with the wind pointing you to your waypoint the birds you know guiding you to something cool or like the fox the fox dens you know the fox is leading you to to the shrines and all these different things that appear in the world naturally as opposed to like just through let's say like a mini map or something like that you've totally nailed it uh we had all the kind of standard ui when we started the game but i found like when you're riding towards the dot in the middle of

your ui and it's just counting down the meters till you get there you're not really looking at the world at all you're not present in a moment but when we turn that stuff off and you just kind of know the overall direction, suddenly you're looking and you start noticing stuff around you. Then we can use those diagetic elements like a column of smoke telling you that the Mongols are burning something. It just makes the world suddenly something for you to discover and participate in instead of just min-maxing your passage through space. I got a controversial question for you.

Yes. Why is there no lock-on in the game? Oh, here we go. Oh, here we go. Like, this is one of my few big complaints with the game is that there is not a lock-on. It doesn't like, at the start of the game, I found it to be more of a problem than it became, like, an hour in the game. Like, at a certain point, I got very used to it. And I was like, okay, you know what, this is not as bad as I thought it was at the beginning.

But was there a specific reason why you guys decided, hey, let's not, let's not go for a lock-on? So in looking at classic samurai films, it's very frequently one guy against a big group, unless it's a duel. and when he's fighting a big group, he's moving from one enemy to another to another dancing between their blades. And that was the feeling we wanted to get, especially since your enemies are the Mongols, which are known for large numbers.

So we very purposely did not do a lock-on so that players would get into a rhythm of attacking this guy and then bouncing to this guy and then dodging this guy and then going back in so that you had awareness of all of them in trying to defeat the group. In duels, we do lock on to the enemy because there's only one person

and we know you really want to square up on them and see their every move. But when it's a group, we wanted you to have situational awareness. So you kind of mentioned why, like, why Tsushima for this one, because it was about the Mongol invasion? Was there ever any thought of, like,

was someone ever going like, hey, what about Tokyo? What about Kyoto? like other places and not to commit you to anything in the future, but would there have ever be any thought about going to those places in the future? Oh, you know, right now we are just completely preoccupied with getting Ghost of Shushima patched up as much as possible based on some of the feedback we've got from some reviewers or just our own QA testers since the game went out for production. So that's what we're doing right now.

I would be very excited to make more samurai, adventures in the future, but there's nothing right now that I could just say yes. But if you had a personal choice, like, where would you want one to be? Well, we got to go to Kyoto at some point, right? Who from the game was going to go there? I did a bunch of side quest, right? And I saw someone off. It was Yunna, right?

No. Somebody wanted to go somewhere else and start something. She wanted to get off the island. Was it, was it Tomo? Did Tomo want to go? Was she going Kyoto and she might start some business? I thought somebody wanted to go somewhere

and start a business in Kyoto. Kenji? Kenji's with me forever, all right? Kenji's my boy forever. Don't try to take him away from me. Doesn't matter. Sorry. I totally subtracted to the conversation.

I don't know where we would go next. I look forward to the challenge. I'll tell you that. How? I'm sorry. How do you, how do you this is always a question i like asking developers Nate you've worked on this game for years it's finally reviewed and then literally as it was recording this it comes out tomorrow right like

how do you then deal with us immediately going can we have more like there's a question in the comments from uh kucho who's like can't is there any plans for dLC are you just like i just finished this please let me it's not even finished we're working on it like is that heartwarming that we want more immediately or is it completely frustrating that we're not happy that we already have what we have oh i could not be happier that people are interested in more uh okay without question i mean we we've been working on this game for so long and it is it is a little tiring as you might imagine but the last thing i would want is for somebody to get it and be like then that's enough i mean that would that's a heartbreaker um right here i'm going to insert a word from our sponsor nice are you going to use a british accent

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Jen's not going to make it out. And the bucket is going to pass on to Yuna and you know is going to be the main character I also got that. Yeah, legit. I was like, yeah, legit, I was like, oh, Yunna's going to become the ghost of Shima. I was convinced at a certain point. until it didn't happen. But that did make me think of

DLC and future games and possibly playing as other characters. Is that something that you guys ever thought of or something that came up, like the idea of switching characters or even like what might a future game be like without Jin? Well, we're just not at a point where we're working on a future game right now.

But I mean, I definitely think of Yuna as being another ghost, for sure. sure in the game. She and Jin are partners and she's as capable and she's right there with them. So it's not crazy at all that you thought that. I mean, we definitely wanted it to feel like she is right there with her, his sword because she's the one that he trusts with it. And she could use it if he's not coming back. So I don't think it's a crazy thought at all. That as for you know, like details. I don't have any. No, no, yeah, yeah. I have a question in a similar vein in terms of things that

wouldn't have made it, right? We're talking earlier we were talking about fighting. So we're talking about fighting in a group. We're talking about obviously calling it for a standoff, the one-on-one duels. Were there other things, I think it's interesting because, you know, when we watched that state of play and had all this dropped on us and you're seeing it all, you're like, oh my gosh, there's so, there's all these different mechanics and ways you're fighting. Were there ones that you were doing earlier? on that either got cut for content or weren't as much fun or were there other things like that? Or were these the core the whole way through?

This was the core of the whole way through. We knew that a katana-based combat was like the absolute dead center of the experience. You think about being a samurai, you think about getting a sword fight. So we started early and we never stopped working on that. And it took a fair amount of work. animation tropeer to get it to where it was. Other aspects of it, like duels or stand-offs, are kind of satellites to that base experience

of just being surrounded by enemies with your sword out and having to dance between their swords. And a similar question, talk to me a little bit about things in the open world. Like, you know, we've talked a lot about it. Me and Imran have the platinum, because we're really good gamers, blessing too young doesn't understand how to hold the control

like the platinum game. Exactly. But one of the things that I was talking about, right? You have the armor then. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Iridescent? It's like, yeah, you know the colors. It's all super colorful and cool. Yeah.

I will tell you that that was the very last thing we added into the game because we just didn't, we didn't feel like we rewarded people enough with platinum. Sure. And so we scrambled. to make this armor div variant, just so we could say thank you for getting to this point. Hopefully, it is loud enough and vibrant enough

to warrant all of your hard work, guys. I remember getting the platinum in Second Sun, and then Delston saying, like, hey, we spent too much time together. So I'm glad in this one, like the game actually kind of thanks me for getting the platinum. You're like, oh, good. I don't feel bad about this.

See, the platinum, you know, the platinum itself is the reward. I didn't need the armor. I appreciate it. I thank you for it. But, you know, my real, my real memories, or what, the real treasure was the memories I made along the one. Like, you don't have to worry about that.

You know, I get the end there. But the question for you was, when you're doing all the open world stuff and we're talking about, you know, bamboo strikes, we're talking about the hot tubs. We're talking about the fox dens. Were there other ones of those that you tried that didn't make it? I mean, I know one of the things that I've talked about, you know, is like at the end, trying to platinum it when it is just like, okay, I've done all the missions. It was like, all right, 40-some Fox Denz.

You know, and I still have 15 left or whatever. Were there other things you wanted to put in there that didn't come, it didn't work or didn't come together? Not really. Those little kind of collectible mini-games, I mean, they're not even really mini-games. They're so small. Those are meant to just accent the feeling of the time and place to give you these moments to either drink in nature or just focus on what is it to do a sweet sword slash and it's just

about that um i love them and uh i certainly with you know another year of development would have made a lot more but we didn't just have some kind of waiting around that we didn't use sure that makes sense i one of the things i do want to do too is uh i want to compliment you on the fox den that we show up to and it's been like ravaged there's like a dead fox there like i thought that was a nice, because it happened deep enough where I was in the rhythm of getting them. And I'm like, all right, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to chase a little guy over there, whatever. And it was, I appreciated that one shaking it up. I appreciated that, you know, the Fox dens would also intersect with like standoffs or fights or whatever, where it was like,

it wasn't just chasing this Fox every time. There were things that shook it up somewhere along one. One question I want to get in here too before we get into anything else. A whole bunch of different stuff still happening here. But we talked about, obviously, at the beginning of this, you want to do a samurai game. You want to do something completely different. And then also, obviously, you want to make it as authentic as possible, as respectful as possible. You bring in all these representatives both from Sony Japan and just experts and all that stuff. All that said, and all the work that went into doing this game correctly and not having a, you know, hit and be hollow or hit and just be completely off the mark.

does that make the Fimitsu review all the better? I mean, you know, it's here we are. You have this perfect score from them, right? It's like you're the third Western game, right? To earn a perfect score from Femitsu, like, that's incredible, right? Because I mean, Femitsu is video game reviewing in Japan, right? How, what was that like? When I learned about that, I just, I felt relieved.

we wanted so much to just do right by Japanese gamers and to not make something that would kick them out of the fantasy and to get told you did it guys you put in the homework. It felt great. But, you know, I just didn't want to screw it up, man. I'm sure, yeah, that would have been a problem. It's not just, I shouldn't say I don't want to screw it up.

I mean, the whole team doesn't want to screw it up. We worked hard to look at, Everything we could, you know, architecture, how boats were made, all that stuff. And I shouldn't say it was hard. It was actually one of the great joys of making the game. We've never made anything like this where every day you're learning. People came to sucker punch because they were excited about working on a game set in feudal Japan. So you get in there and now it's your job to figure out how to model the Sasha and Mona banner.

People were psyched to do it because they were interested. in the time. They've come up by name, but talk to me a little bit about the cast of characters here that were like Jin's team. Like I think I was caught off guard by how much I liked Sensei Shakawa,

Lady Mosco, her entire storyline, I thought was fantastic. We talked a second ago about having to fight her. I did not expect to have to fight her. And when we did have to fight her, it was another one similar for me with Uncle where I'm like, this sucks, this sucks, I like you, but don't make me.

And so that at the end, when you beat her, and it's like, don't try to kill me again. She's like, I won't. I'm like, I love this relationship. I love that that's how it ends. I'm like, don't try to betray me again. You got it. Let's go do this. Like, where to they enter the picture in terms of, obviously, you know you're making an open world game.

You know you have the main quest of Jin stuff here. How do you start coming up with those characters then that are going to accent this story? So we knew the trunk of the tree was that transformation of Jin from Samurai to ghost and all of the other characters are just satellites around them. So the two easy examples there are, Shemora exists in the story to say, you are screwing up, Jen, you have to stay to the course. Yuna exists in the story to say, I'm going to challenge the status quo. You should do what actually helps the people of the island.

So you can see how those two are pushing and pulling on him. Now, Lady Masako is the embodiment of just fury and revenge. She's going out there. Internally, we call her murder grandma. Because she just, she just is out for blood. And you can see, it's like a cautionary tale. Should Jin just let Fury take him? He will be like her.

Ishikawa has a relationship with Tomoe, which is very similar to Jin's relationship with his uncle. So you're seeing a mirror of what could happen to Jin with his uncle through the lens of Ishikawa and Tomoy that hopefully lets you think about a future with Jin differently. All of the characters are just there

for that reason. Speaking of Tomoy is... So I feel like this may be a thing you'll tell me is up to my interpretation, but was she actually like captured by the Mongols and forced to work for them or was she doing it voluntarily?

She was captured. Okay. I'm actually very glad there's an answer to that. Because I know that at the time being suspicious of both of them. And I figured at some point they would make me choose. I'm like, I didn't want to choose.

Because it's got to be one of them is right and not both of them. Good to know. Shout out to Lady Mosco. Some of my favorite screenshots that I've taken in the photo mode in the game. We've got to talk about photo mode also. But, you know, I've been trying to do

some like character portrait screenshots and I have like up close ones and Lady Moscow with like her sword. Like obviously ready to kill. You know, that I love that. I haven't posted yet because the game hasn't come out and I don't want to like spell, do like character spoilers for anybody

but you know Nate for you do you have a favorite character in the game? Ooh. My favorite is Uncle Shimura. I just love that guy. He

I want to please him. That's why I kill him at the end because I like him so much. He's my favorite. He's the samurai ideal that I know I'm not to measure up to. Can you talk about the the photo mode a bit because I know for me and for quite a few other people who I've seen

tweeting about it and talking about it I'm absolutely in love with the photo mode. It's probably my favorite photo mode in a game. And I think a big part of that is the fact that you guys have the animated environment thing where when you pause for the photo mode, the grass is still flowing, the wind's still going, and the

particles are still going. What was the thought process into putting together this photo mode? Just to take advantage of the beauty of sushi mom. I mean, so much. effort has gone into creating that dynamic world and the particles go along with it. So why not let players participate in that act of creation? And I think that's brilliant.

I think that, you know, I mean, for photo modes in general, I'm always a fan. But like, so some of them are, I don't want to say bare bones, but some of them are as simple as just like, all right, cool, your color in contrast is the character there. Are they not there? I think the, you know, not even just the fact that they can be animated in this, it's the fact that you can change them. You can go through and cycle what particle you want. You can, you know, make it from nothing to all.

It's crazy in there. The, you know, different filters, dropping color, taking color, the roles, the text. Like, yeah, exactly. Yeah, whether, like, all the options that are there, I feel like are super good in terms of creating your own scene. And, like, the world itself is just a, it's very visually stunning. in a way that like every few minutes in the game, I'd want to pause to get into photo mode. Yeah.

And so like, actually for you, let's talk about, I want to talk about that, actually, because the environment in the game is probably my other, like, favorite thing about Goswshima, how visually diverse it is and varied and colorful and vibrant. What inspired you guys to go that direction with it? Well, I get full props to Jason Connell, who directed all of that.

And I think he is, a genius. He and I are both huge fans of Samurai Cinema, and he correctly kind of eyeballed how Spartan things were and how clean they were. And so he, I'll never forget, because the thing that really made it clear for me was the team was going to make a fern forest. And he had a picture of what a real fern forest is. It would have a fern with a tree and maybe like a bush with, like, a bush, would like some brown coming off of it. And that's what photorealistic forest is. And then he had another picture, which was just fern.

That's all it was. And it's not as realistic because there's not the diversity that you would see in real life. But it's such a strong, powerful statement about just this is a place with visual identity through a very steady color that almost becomes a landmark in the space. And as you move from a huge clump of ferns to a big, a rich bamboo forest, which is bamboo, right? It's not ferns plus bamboo. You get a strong sense of variation and also like core identity. And that Spartanness is what makes the environment so alive to me.

And, you know, the sucker bunch art team, I don't know how they do it, to be honest. I'm not a member of that team. I wish I was as good as them. They're the best. Yeah, I think that, I mean, that's the thing, obviously, since state of play, I think, when we guys really got to give a giant presentation of this game and have it go out there, it was shown there, but then to live it, you know, for 50 some hours, maybe 60, I don't even know. I think the game is so visually stunning.

And I love the style the game exudes, right? Like, it's to your point that I think, you know, you're in the game. these things and it's like these colors are otherworldly but they also are completely fitting for the island and what they're doing in a way that I'm right there with everybody even if I wasn't taking the photo that the amount of times I would stop on a cliff's edge or ride into a new thing and just look take it in or you know back to the very beginning of this show talking about your journey with your horse and who gin is and how he nonverbally communicate stuff you know riding through the flowers and seeing him dip his hand just to like you know pet the tops of him as he

I was like, oh my God, like, there's a world here, right? And it's like you guys created this thing and everything fits inside of it, if that makes sense. While we're talking about the art team and other weird things, finish the game. You know, this is again the first time we could talk about anything stuff. It's super exciting. You finish the game. You're in Gin's house, his little ghost bat cave or whatever you want to call it.

And you're looking through all his, you know, his memories, right? And going through everything from the journey you just did. I also noticed a bunch of origami pieces. that seemed a little different. Can you explain that if people haven't seen these? Because it's very easy to miss. So those are very small shoutouts to other Sony game development studios. You pick them up and look at them,

and they are different elements from other games that are made by our sister studios. That's awesome. I love the little Easter eggs. I love that it's held to the end, because obviously in the middle of it, if I would have picked up Ratchet's face, so would have been like what the hell is this but like at the end as i'm like it's this weird

juxtaposition for me because it's the this awesome thing of all these little sony easter eggs that i think you can blow right past and then also jinn going through and picking up like the straw hat right and remembering uh rizu right we haven't talked about rio yeah like we haven't talked about like that journey and what that relationship and friendship was like like then to have these little things there as a nod to us the player as we've you know if you want it to be you're at the end of your journey or if you want to be, you know, a real cool gamer, like me and Imran, go get the plastic. You know what I mean? Not be a coward.

One day, I'm going to get it. I really did. I didn't know about the origami thing until you brought it up just now. And I really thought you're about to be like, oh, yeah. And there's this Easter egg for paper Mario and the origami keying in there. I would know. I was like, oh, that at first I was like, I wonder this is an infamous second son reference because of the paper stuff in that game.

And I was like, oh, wait, no, I actually recognize the shapes of it. I could tell what this is. It was like, it was a cool moment for that. Yeah. Yeah, do we want to bring up any of the other stuff? I know a blessing you wanted to talk about at one point, the death of Taka, right? Like, I mean, him picking up his sword, right?

And this like, brutal thing where I was like, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. And then he grabs it. Even Jin's looking at him like, don't do it. And he turns around and tries to get the con, it's not. I was pissed off at him because I'm like, you don't know what the fuck you're doing.

Just like run away and get help. Go get Yuna. That will help much more than what you're doing right now. Yeah. I was actually surprised by the amount of, like, fates and the amount of, I guess, character journeys in the main story that I found myself, like, super engaged with that I didn't realize I was engaged with until they had those moments, like the talk of what we're talking about. But also, what's his name? We just mentioned him, Riyogu or something like that. Riuzzo.

Yes, yes. Like, when you get into the duel with him, you know, when you're infiltrating the castle in act one, Um, legit, I got chills. Like when that face off happened, the whole time, like, as they're building up to the duel, I was like,

no, please no. No. And then when you get into the duel and I'm like, I guess we're doing this, bro. I guess this is happening. Well, for me,

it was like, yeah, when he didn't show up, right? When him and the straw hats didn't show up, I didn't jump to, oh, they're betraying us. I was like, oh, they're going to come in at the last second,

save the day. Like they're running late. They got whatever. They're still coming. And then to get there and have them, have flipped. I was like, well done. Again, back to my personal push that this is a superhero game, right? Like a villain

created by Jin doing what he thinks is right, just living his life, right? He is a samurai. He wanted to become a samurai too, so he had to win that duel, right? Whereas he's like, no, you didn't. That was my one chance and you fucked me over. You were going to be fine regardless. You could have taken the L. And it's like, oh, that's a really interesting chip to have on your shoulder for that long and see where that journey led him and now it blowing up at our face about it. And so, yeah. I'm so glad you guys were paying attention to those conversations when they're just riding on horses. Oh, yeah.

You're picking it all up. I mean, that's the, that's the history. And certainly when we're making the game, we wanted to show people doing noble actions and doing selfish actions. And when people fall down like that, it's for a good reason, right, trying to stay alive in this really crummy situation. I did like how Rio Co, like, kind of, he didn't want to seem to fight Jen because he knew he would lose. And like, the time you do fight him, he's kind of resigned to it. It'd be like, well, I guess we're doing this. Maybe I'll have a shot.

Maybe not. But like, every time you see him talking to Coton Khan before then, he's saying like, yeah, nobody can beat him. I don't know what you think you're doing, but just sending swordsmen out after him is not going to work. No. Do you know that scene where Cot and Con, is kind of mentally dominating Ryuso, and he makes Reuzzo burn some peasants alive to intimidate the people in Castle Shemora.

To me, that is one of the best moments with Reuzo, because even though he just betrayed you, you suddenly feel sympathy for him because he made a bad choice, and now he's suffering it, having to do horrible things because he made his bed and he has to sleep in it. it to me that

it really changed my feelings about him because he wasn't I felt a lot of sympathy for him I guess it flipped it around yeah the way he does it and then collapses you know what I mean like when he doesn't have to do it again like I'm right there with you and again

it's in the same vein as uncle where I like you I understand why you're like this and where we are and how we got here you know what I mean it's not like you're you did this and twirled your evil mustache You did this because of what you thought you had to do to survive and what you had to do for the straw hats, right? Because he's doing it for them. They're starving.

They have no food. That was my big thing throughout the story is that. And aside from the Mongols, pretty much everybody is doing what they're doing because they see either the good in it or the value in it. And so like, you know, when it came to him, you know, burning the bodies in front of the castle, right? To intimidate them. It was when he started breaking down and being like, just please just open the door. That's when I was like, okay, I'm feeling this sympathy now. Like, I understand where you're coming from, even though, you know, what you did was pretty objectively evil.

Like, you're doing it because you're not, you're not seeing another way forward. You don't necessarily have hope that Jin's going to be able to take back the island. I was on the same side until, like, Jen kept giving him chances to, like, join us. And you get going, now, I'm good. Like, I just want to be too far. It's like, no, really, you're losing. Just back off for a minute. You'll be fine.

Yeah. that kind of also adds to the cons uh like how intimidating he is because for me when i when we do that first storm on the castle to take him out and like he ends up throwing gin over the the bridge into the water i think that set him up is a very uh kind of a scary villain legit i was like oh snap this guy seems like he's going to be a force to reckon with um so like the the buildup throughout the game of him like continually continually like i guess thwarting his power and continually like you know, establishing that he is the con and he is here to

to fuck shit up. I mean, I thought the game did a pretty good job with that and yeah, toward the end, the satisfaction of having that face off with him and having that wave-based kind of combat, like boss battle at the end of it felt satisfying.

Man, we, I failed you. The running joke with Patrick, the guy who played the con, I feel like, like maybe eight times in this story, he tries to convince the people of of Tsushima, be it Uncle Shimora or Jin on that bridge before he throws them off. He's constantly trying to get the people of Tsushima to surrender so he doesn't have to hurt

anyone else. He's going to intimidate them, but he wants them to throw down their arms so there will be no more bloodshed. He's being very scary about it, though. Oh, no, no, for sure. I mean, he's going, he will, he will destroy you. But part of why he wants to intimidate you is so that you'll just stop. To me, that is what I really like about him is that he's sort of unnervingly logical in what he's saying.

And I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that everybody would have been better off of, you know, they just laid down their arms. So many more people would be alive. Of course, Susham would now be part of the Mongol Empire, so that's its own problem. I feel like he's got a pretty reasonable argument. That's crazy talk. He's an invader. Get off my island. You know what I mean?

You show like early, like the very first scene with him is him like just burning a dachi with a torch. It's like, okay, that's that's what I think a good person does. I mean, but like gin, poison,

poison folks. He had to. He was backed into a corner blessing. Well, so was the con. It becomes a thing of like every game. for like 10 years the final boss would say we're not so different you and I I'm very glad they didn't actually say that in this game. It was implied but it was good the line didn't actually come out.

We learned this from you, the poison. It all goes back to you, Jin. You're the mistake. You're the problem. Well, I mean, like from a narrow perspective, the fact that Jin always felt like he was a loaded gun where someone's like has their finger on the trigger the entire time. Like to the point where mechanics of that game feel like the standoff specifically. As it kept going through the narrative, I'm like, okay, y'all are just standing in front of

a loaded gun at this point. This is kind of on you. Yeah, the standoff thing was interesting for me because I think, yeah, in the beginning, I was doing it, doing them fine, but like somewhere by the end of Act 1, and I would be interested to know if there is a gameplay mechanic in your head, Nate, for this,

but it was that at some point, the fact of you hold a triangle and release triangle to do the move, somewhere between it stopped feeling active to be more passive as if there was this like wall of force that I was barely holding back and then I'm given the second to unleash it. It didn't feel like I was doing it as much as I was getting out of its way. Like I was pulling the cork out of a champagne bottle and letting gin explode. Oh yeah, totally. I think that, I mean, that's the intention. For all of our other attacks, you know, you hit the button and the thing happens. Yeah.

But for that one, you press the button and then you're waiting. And, I mean, there's like an actual physical tension on your finger while you're doing it. Yeah. I mean, I know it's not a big deal, but you are holding down the button. And you're waiting to release, release the sword out of its sheath, release the button. And it's, it's tense, right? The camera's pulling back while it's getting narrower. So it feels like you're getting a little bit of vertigo.

The guy moves a little bit and you don't want to. take the bait, and then he really moves, and you have to do it. You have to move your hand back as Jin does the same thing with his arm to try and make you as sympathetic to the exact moment of what Jin's doing. Yeah, early on in the game, I was like,

oh, this is easy. I'm going to be able to do this for everybody. Like, why even bother to fight them? I'll just stand them all off. Then by the third act, I was like, I'm not going to stand anybody off anymore. It's really hard. I'm just going to kill them from a distance

with like a with poison or something and not have to actually, like, deal with that. Yeah, the amount of times I screwed it up into act two and three. I was like, oh, god, I'm like, it's totally, it's back to what we're talking about. I'm just like, I'm not the ghost of Sashima. I'm just a guy who can barely do this standoff right.

Because when you nail it, you nail it. You feel so powerful. I think that that mechanic is probably the most quintessential samurai thing in the game. I mean, that just dead silent tension, waiting to the other got to move, and then one slash.

I, uh, I love that. I tried to finish people off in duels with the, what was the name, the heavenly blow. Just because I like the idea of like the slash past the samurai and then watching them slowly fall, just because that is the samurai. Oh, my gosh. Oh, it's so good. Totally.

They're dead on their feet. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Oh, man. I love it. Nate, one thing I'd be remiss if I didn't ask. Was there ever an idea to put a quick change, like load out thing in the game for gear and

charms? This is something we were talking about, right? of like we were all so obsessed with the game that if I'm riding on the horse, I'm wearing the traveling garb. And then I'd get to a place and it's like, oh, I'm going to switch over to the Sakai armor so I can get a better standoff. And you're hopping into a menu and switching your gear, let alone charms I didn't really touch until the very, very end of the game.

Was there ever an idea to do something about that? No. I had never heard that idea until watching your review. And I got to say it's a really good idea. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome to take it. Put it in a patch.

I don't mind. You don't have to call it. You don't even have to put my name on it. It's fine. I won't be offended. I do want my name on it, though. Damn, all right. Fine, I see him around the patch then.

Nate, is there anything we haven't talked to you about that you, you know, is like your first chance to talk on a camera, I think, about, like, what's actually happened in this game? Is there something that you want to ask us? Is there a topic we didn't touch on anything like that? A story we need to know. Yeah, actually, I'm curious. You'd ask me who my favorite character was. Who are your favorite characters and why?

Interesting. Interesting. I mean, I, I, I think it's a cop out, but I love gin. So I'm going to put that out there that I totally love gin. I liked filling in, you know, it's a game at the end where, you know, like you're talking about. I think a lot of people are, I think even blessing who had to go get something is talking about how stoic he was and how he didn't really connect with him. And for me, I think again, projecting so much superhero Batman, Cole on him, you know what I mean, of getting to the end and having those moments with Nobu for me, Uncle, you know what I mean?

these things to see him grow and feel and have pain. I really dug him. And like, you know, that's why like as soon as a PlayStation or no, Funko put out the, hey, there's a limited edition Funko pop of him.

I bought it like a sucker. Like this sucker I am. I like, I love this guy and buy his pop. But outside of him, I think, uh, and it's a weird one because I do love,

uh, Lady Moscoe. I did love Sensei. But Kenji got introduced. And I was like, this guy is like the annoying comic relief. I'm going to hate him. And I ate up his journey and his side stuff.

And by the time when you have that conversation with him of like, why are you just fleecing people? You could do so much more. And he has that thing of like, all right, I will. And it's like, holy shit, that's awesome. I just inspired this guy. And like, we saw him go from just the, hey, I'm going to steal all the sake and steal her stuff and sell him ping pong ball parts or whatever. He's like, no, no, I got this. And it was like, oh, my God, that's awesome.

You get him. Hey, I'm Kenji. You know what I mean? It was your favorite. For me, it was, I think, Mosico was. probably the one for me just because like when you see her you see her as like you mentioned her as murder grandma

but like you could tell that even at like her in her like 60s she is as good as Jen and so you have to imagine when she was younger she was probably like she was the ghost of that time and I love the idea that you can see her such that she has almost like no growth

during her side quest it is her mostly beyond revenge and then suddenly I was like yeah I don't need to maybe kill every one just most people, but the scene with the former housekeeper, the former maid, where you find out her in Muscoe used to be lovers. It's like, oh, that actually gives a lot more depth to her character all of a sudden of now I realize she's not just a murder machine. She had a life, she had a husband, she had a family, and at times she got bored with these things, and she ended up falling in love with a woman. And the part where she tries to explain to Jen, like, we were very close

and she's like, I don't need to hear it. It's fine, whatever. Just you do. You do. you. I think that that is good emblematic of their relationship where they've bonded over this shared revenge. In the second she starts getting to be more of a human, Jin's like, I'm aware of it, but

that's your life and you've lived a long one and I think it's, you follow your star. That's all I had to say. Yeah, I love that. I loved her quest line because it was for me too, like, it kept me guessing, because I was really like, all right, so did, at one point I was like, So her husband must have survived, right?

It's something like you're talking about how, you know, it sounds like very personal story and how this thing. So then to actually get there and be surprised at the ending and have it make sense and like have the love interest I like, we haven't talked at all. I mean, shout out to Yuriko, right? Like I thought she's awesome in general. You know, she's helpful grandma, not murder grandma. And, you know, but then to also see her not only, you know, ravaged by dementia,

but also wrestling with what you're asking her to do and her being like again not that i'm trying to drive the batman thing home this much but like the alfred who's like a long for the ride of like all right if this is what you need me to do uh jen i will but you know going through that seeing it having her start to slit more and more and lose time and you know start to think jinn is his father and what that actually that relationship was and the explanations there i was like oh this is great too like just getting to hang out with these characters and i think that's what's you you know you you do so well, right, on these side quests. Not only are you there, yeah, for the killing in the gameplay or the whatever,

there is so much just hanging out. You know, let's make a haiku together. Let's do these things that I think in another game, I would not roll my eyes at, but not be invested in. Whereas, like, for every one of the haikus, it was like, what are we reflecting on? All right, what should I look around in? I don't like that line.

Oh, I like that line and start trying to actually piece it together to make something. Well, real quick question. What was the grandmas, well, not the grandma, but like the what the nanny? Here you go. Yeah, here you're a go. What was her relationship with his dad? Was there?

They were lovers, right? Okay. Okay, I thought that. I didn't know if I was being crazy. Because, man, it creeped me out when she was, like, there was some, like, when she was like, oh, you're, you know, mistaking him with her father, his father and, like, things getting a little weird. And it's like, I don't like this.

I don't like, you're like a grandma figure. Like, stop this. For a second there, I was starting to think, like, wait, is she? about to say that she's gin's real mom like wait is that where this is all building to but no it just builds to yeah they they were lovers right and like uh how i love that i love i mean it's heartbreaking but i love her story of like spending the night with you taking care of sick gin was the happiest i've ever been does that make me a bad person right when she's completely lost in the moment with gin thinking it's the father like that was so heartbreaking but also like so powerful i thought also i didn't get a chance

to say this earlier, Nate, but like, how could you break my heart the way you did with Sora? You know? Like, there's, there was no reason to do that. The amount of times we were riding and he would say, or Jin would say, like, oh, after all this, we're just going to go on a peaceful, like, ride. And I'd be like, yeah, we are. It's going to be great. And we never got a chance to.

Yeah. War as hell. What do you? if you would have just given up to the Mongols, it would have been fine. Yeah. Did we talk about like the moment? Khan asked you to surrender seven times.

At his good point, he did ask us to surrender a lot. Have we talked about the moments where you'll do an assassination and then that'll trigger like a story moment of like, you know, a flashback to Jen talking to his uncle and like his uncle teaching him the same way? Because those are some of the coolest moments for me as I was playing the

game? Yeah, those flashbacks are dope. That was one thing that, I mean, I think it's, was a bit of a challenge to try and explain the code of the samurai to people, because we didn't really want to be like a textbook. We wanted to personalize it. And so how did Jin learn about these rules from his uncle? And how does he get haunted by them, even though he doesn't stop, right? So he jumps down and he smashes a guy from above, kills him. And there's that moment of saying, I got to do it.

And so I'm a fan of those because in an open world setting, those play completely dynamically. They're based exclusively on what you do as the player. And so it's you making these choices in time. And then you get that little narrative hit from the uncle kind of repeating his warning. So it's still in you. You know that what, Jin is doing makes him feel a little cringy, but he's not going to stop.

You can't. A blessing while you stepped away, the question was asked from Nate. Who our favorite character was? Who was your favorite character? Oh, our favorite character. Man, that's difficult. And like, so I was one of the people that mainline the game because toward, toward the path of reviewing this game, I thought that I was not making good time because I, during act one, I was doing all the side stuff and I was clearing out that portion of the island

and I got to act too and I looked at how long I'd been playing the game and I was like shoot I got a mainline ended up beating the game you know like quite a few days before the review and so like then I went back and started doing more of the side stuff but I haven't gotten to do all the tales that I've wanted to um and so like right now I really like Lady Mosco

I mean one just because she is this murder machine murder grandma yeah and I love her for that but I also do really like the uncle and so like shout out shout out to the uncle shout out to um uh

shout out to the con I'm just getting a shout-offs now yeah now you're just listing everybody in the game you're like looking at the IMDV here's going down list yeah um I don't know if I haven't got to do any of his stuff yet like I don't do you got to the line is gruesome

yeah the character side quests I think are just so well done because they are what we're talking about earlier right the lone wolf and cub like here's an episode right of you're just doing something in town these longer ones that are pieced together tell such interesting stories and uh see yeah norio's entire journey yeah and him go from one very specific place to a completely different place by the end is holy shit yeah i didn't see that coming i really liked uh Kenji also like I thought that was a very good uh like comedic character uh that like added love to levity throughout um and also shout out to yuna like i really like unah as a

character i think she she does a good job of uh like like you said nate like adding that that opposite perspective of of the uncle and kind of pushing you forward and pushing on your journey um so i'm gonna count i'm gonna take you in my car cat actually speaking of uncle shimura like so i was trying to piece together through flashbacks and through like the main story he seemed like he was a good uncle slash father to Jin, I could not tell if he was a good lord

Pisashima. Because there was the thing with the Yarakawa rebellion, which seemed to imply that, so they said it was like, oh, one of them got drunk inside a cause a big riot. It's like,

but when you actually go to Yarokawa, they seemed like they were actually very pissed about the whole thing. It did not think Shimara treated them well. Yeah, they hate Clan Sakai and they hate Clan Shimora. They were, in their eyes,

oppressed by them. So, yeah, in the history is that Jin's father, Kazimasa and Lord Shimora, just dominated them and slew all their samurai and made them second class. So he's not a perfect person at all. And those sins that he had done,

Jin has to kind of work through in the game to win back the Yarkowen, to inherently don't trust him and think that he's just a pawn. You know, I don't know what's perfect. Yeah. No, and I like that about it. I like that with every character. I like that for Sensei Ishikawa, right?

Like it was very much that he starts off and he is any, I mean, by the end he is too still like very pompous and sure of himself and yada yada. But he let there are, he lets his humanity come through at times, right? And he does question himself and if he did the right thing. And if this is it, what has it have his actions led to? And then even to get to getting back with Timo, right? and not having it be like we they don't fight to the death right they are this thing and they do

have this moment even if it is from a boat to a shore like you have a moment with them of like all right cool this is what it is like i like that the game it doesn't exist in a black and white scenario of like this is good and that's bad even like you're talking about Nate that you know in some ways maybe the con was actually you know offering the olive branch even though the mongles are just there to kill everything nonstop the only morally good person the game is the the tell the guy who tells you the tails that gets you to the genomes. The musician or whatever? Yeah.

All right. Anybody got anything else? Any other pressing questions? Blessing are you satiated? And I think I am satiated. I feel like I'm a ghost, you know? Oh, you are the ghost? Yeah, maybe you should go flat on tonight, you know? I mean, maybe not tonight. I have a lot to do still.

That's a big world with a lot of things to do in it. And so mainlining it and coming back to it, it just left me with a lot of tasks. So I have a question for you two guys that platinum debt. Hey, hey, all right. Why, how did you decide to take on side quests? Now, I've told you that my hope for players is that they,

they ignore the trunk of the tree. They don't just do gin's tales one after another that they go off and they do the friend character chains or they just find other things. What got to you to kind of go off that main path and explore? We kind of talked about this a little with like the Breath of the Wild comparisons, but the way I play Breath of the Wild was I had a heading and I just do whatever it was on the way to the heading. I'll get distracted by whatever I want. This kind of, it kind of worked the same way for me is like, for example, with the six duels quest, I saw the duels on the map and I was like, that's far away. I'm going to have to like dedicate some time to going there. So I do that and just like as I did that, I would do other stuff on the way. So like for the most part that worked out, like with character quests, I looked at the number first. And a lot of, and a lot of,

variety. I just want to know, like, if I'm not going to do five main dishes in a row, I want to do some variety of this. I want to do everyone, get everyone on the same number before I move on, which is just OCD a little bit. But I, for the most part, it was I wanted to travel Tsushima and do things as they came about naturally. Yeah, for me, it was similar. Because for me, it was clearing the maps, right, where it was, you know, I wanted to, obviously, yeah, I'd get to whatever the mission was, but I'd put on the traveler gear and start going and see the fog of war lift, and it would be a question marks over there or white smoke or something would stop me. Or, you know, it would be too of like stopping and fighting bandits or Mongols and then getting

whoever you're saving, they say something interesting and I do want to go do that. Like it was that sense of the world's my oyster, where do I want to take it? How do I want to do? And to your point, I think Nate, from way back talking about this game and comparing it to infamous and that how infamous, of course, is like a jungle gym. and there's a million things. This one having it spaced out was more of a, for me, the idea of looking at the map and be like, all right, cool, even if I'm going just, you know, due north and there's the mission

I want to do. But I look over here and the fog is clear and there's just two question marks and they're pretty close together. I would, you know, go east, right? And I would go and do those to knock them out to then move to the next thing. And I just kept organically going that way. And, you know, my hope had been that I would be able to do everything and then platinum it with beating the final mission.

because I feel like that's, again, to your trunk of the tree argument, like, I wanted all the branches extended. But then to make review embargo and everything, I ended up deviating from that and coming back and then just cleaning up what I needed to clean up and run around and do that. Okay, cool. So if it wasn't for the review deadline, you just would have gone wide. Of course. Yeah. And I think that's the best way to do it. You know what I mean? Because I think it is that so much attention in detail went into those character side quests that even like, it was that thing for me of like, I'm a weird completionist slash story guy.

So even when we got there and like, it's like, okay, we're about to do the final attack. Talk to your friends if you want. It's option. I'm like, well, I'm going to talk to my friends. And walking up to each one of them and being to like Lady Mosca, I'm like, thank you for being here. I know we still haven't caught your killer. I'm like, oh, fuck.

God damn, but I wish we were here saying, I know we've caught your killer. And now we're going to go do this. Thank you for everything. I was like, ah, fuck. Like, that's how I felt, I felt connected to those characters. I wanted to take care of. of those characters. I thought it was interesting that, you know, I don't know how, right? But Norio, like, when he got introduced, I didn't realize he was one of like the, you know,

starring side characters that he'd have his own quest. And so I'd already done a bunch of everybody else's. And then he popped up and I was kind of like, oh, like, you're kind of a Johnny come lately. I don't really get who you are. And, you know, I ran off and did a whole much other stuff. And I think even push it to act three and then started doing his stuff. And I was like, fuck, even you are awesome. And I really wish I would have started this earlier and really gotten you where you needed to be. Because yeah, by the end of that, finishing all those off and having it,

this team that you, like this weird Ocean's 11 Avengers squad you've assembled that you've all gone through some shit with, right? It reminds me so much of Mass Effect 2 and like having those missions, those loyalty missions to get Jacob and Jack and make them fucking your people. That is the nicest compliment I've ever heard.

Mass Effect 2 is the greatest game that's ever been made by human beings, sub-legent of Zelda. I kept wishing I don't remember her name the boss lady of Imuraki Cove I kept wishing she had more stuff because I was hoping she'd like Oh Lady Sanjo

Lady Sanjo Because she seemed cool And I wanted to like get to know her better But is just that one quest Yeah Yeah she's I wish we'd given her more time All right I have another question for you guys

And this is me trying to learn How to make video games better Sure when you got the ghost stance and you can decapitate a leader and power it up or you can kill you know a certain number of dudes and the Mongols or straw hats in your area

will become kind of fretful because you you've been slaying their pals did you get that ghost stance meter up through stealth or through just straight up fighting guys for me it would be stealth for me it was fighting guys Because basically by that point in the game, I had a build that was sent around terrifying enemies.

So it was just very easy to, when I'd kill one, like three would fall to the ground, just immediately just go stab them. Then if you're wearing the ghost outfit, it becomes very easy to just, after like four or five enemies, just being ghosts are a ghost stands. So I was basically terrifying people.

It was just a roulette of people, and then ghost stands, than terrifying more people until entire camps were decimated. Yeah, once I got the ghost armor, that was what I was wearing, right? Because again, at that point, like, I think it's such a credit to the story and what you're trying to do, right, that we got to this point that Jen's like, no, I am the ghost of Sashima, right? And I was like, I am the ghost of Sashima. And I got that armor and I wore that armor.

And I'm like, now the gloves are off. I'm going to stealth everything. I'm going to slide Cooper on these wires and jump down on people and do everything and use the poison and use the hallucinogens. And so just by, I think nature of playing that game that way, the, ghost stance was being filled in by stealth. And then it would be the, all right, there's just a few people go out there, you know, assassinate one, show myself, go stance, kill all them. And then, like, I'm thinking of it when I'm taking down the larger Mongol encampments, right, have then moved to the next section to get the next hostage free or whatever it would be.

Yeah, I know for me in the way that I played the game, especially toward the end, I'd use stealth as kind of the setup for me than entering, like the samurai, like actual face-to-face fighting combat. And so, like, a lot of times I would take out, let's say, like, the first five Mongols or Straw hats through stealth, and then that would then transition into me, you know, going Ham and then throwing Hunai and doing all the stuff and actually, like, entering combat. And naturally, I threw that, I would then end up having ghost dance and that. Like, if I hadn't eliminated everybody by then, then there'd be, like, very few people left

for me to just, like, take out. Question, Nate. I think, I think Imron and I might have. talked about this or maybe it was me and bless but there was a thing of how how does the game decide when we can do a standoff and when we can't there were times where i'd be riding at a bunch of enemies and i'm like all right hold up up on the d pad and they would all start looking at me and i'm like oh go go go go and then i would just be fighting them normally man uh i wish i had made that clear uh it it is when you're approaching a group of mongles we invisibly make a

a perimeter around them. So every roadblock or war camp the code looks at where all the enemies are and then makes kind of a line that says this is where they've held this position and you're over here. As soon as they get close to that perimeter, it's like Jin is approaching them

from a distance and they haven't drawn swords yet. So they don't know necessarily that he's a threatening person, that he's as powerful as the ghost. And you have the option if you're outside of that perimeter. Okay. The meta is just supposed to be when you're approaching Mongols,

and they haven't drawn on you yet, you can call them out and say, challenge me. Yeah, fight me. And they don't know what they're up against yet. These fools don't know that they're facing the ghost. And so they'll come out and get you. Sounds like you guys every now and then hit a snag where you didn't get it, which sucks.

I mean, I think fighting in general is fun in your game, so it wasn't that bad. I wasn't like, oh, this is ruining the experience. I was just like, what am I missing? Why can I do it sometimes and not other times? Greg brought up this. How often were you attempting? How often was I attempting? I would say pretty much any time I came up on people in the road.

That would definitely be the thing. A road was in time like I mostly just didn't get it. Yeah. Were you ever in stealth and you would see it kind of flashing and be like, oh yeah, totally. A couple times. Yeah. And the same thing with like challenge remaining enemies and stuff.

I was like, I could, but I've come so far stealthing everybody. Like I'm kind of committed to me in the ghost here. I don't feel like screaming at this point kind of detrimental to everything I've done. That screwed me over a couple of times. Not like, by my own fault. Was I would challenge remaining enemies because I could see them just standing upstairs in a room.

And like I could take these two guys on. Then like a guy with a bow and arrow like across the way just shooting at me. I'm like shit. I did not see him. This is a problem. Yeah, totally. I did that too.

I was like, oh, there's only a couple guys left and like six come down. It was early in the game. Like, oh no. So Greg brought up the Slyke Hooper thing like a few minutes ago talking about how you would Sly Cooper stealth your way through. And we got a question on PSWXOXO earlier this week about like do we see DNA of other sucker punch games within this game?

And so like, Nate, for you, is there DNA of like Slyke Cooper and or infamous and or, and most importantly, Rocket Robot on Wheels in this game? Yes. So Rocket Robot on Wheels featured a parabola showing you where you would throw a thing and where it would land. that's Rocket Robot on wheels. There it is one.

Sly Cooper featured look, you're right. Good deal of platforming. And you know, the feel of Sly where you hit the button and there's this immediacy to what's going on. There's air steering even in this game,

which is, you know, a platform mechanic that happens to exist in our very realistic game. That is Sly Cooper. Actually, the code that was used to make Sly's tail we still use that for simulation. And then Infamous, of course, it's an open world game where we kind of set up

how we would make going from one thing to another with mission starts that would exist and pop up and go down. We just keep building off what we know. And there you go. That's really cool. The parabola thing is actually blowing my mind a little bit right now.

Well, I mean, it's pretty standard in video games at this point, right? But it is the same thing we've been doing for a while. Because it worked. Yeah. Well, this works too, Nate. Congratulations. I'm a huge fan of this game.

I'm, thank you guys for taking the time to play it, talk about it, and then talk to me as well. It's been a real pleasure. Well, you're welcome back anytime. Don't worry about it. Thank you.

Thank everybody up there except Andrew Goldfarb, telling me he did nothing. Yeah, dude, I will insult him to his face for you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this, of course, has been the Kind of Funny Games cast. Remember each and every week, we come together to talk about the things we love going on in video games. If you love that, head over to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games where you can get the show ad free. You can submit your questions.

You can usually get a post show. I'm not going to make Nate sit around even longer talking to us in a post show. So don't worry about that. Yeah, and that's it, right? If you don't want to spend any money, YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games, come on over, subscribe, share it with your friends. Get it on podcast services around the globe. and until next time, no. It's been our pleasure to serve you.