Once upon a time, there was a period when games based on Japanese history wouldn’t be of interest to publishers, but that seems to have all changed with the release of Ghost of Tsushima. Tenchu creator Takuma Endo explained in an interview how Sucker Punch’s game not only proved that Japanese history still had an audience but also made it popular again.
Ghost of Tsushima revived Japanese history games
There was a point in time where publishers “weren’t interested in dealing with games that dealt with Japanese history or really Japanese settings as a subject,” Endo explained in an interview with Metro. This meant that developers didn’t feel able to make these games and they never really appeared on the market outside of Japan. However, Ghost of Tsushima changed all that when it was released to great reviews from players and critics:
And then you have Ghost Of Tsushima that comes along and it kind of proves the opposite, that there is a market and that people are interested. It really had a big impact in Japan, for developers, showing them that this was still viable. And also kind of giving them inspiration and courage to think, ‘Well hey, maybe we can actually approach this subject matter again and start making games within this broad genre’.
Endo feels the reason Ghost of Tsushima was so successful was because of its subject matter. The game has a setting and time period that wasn’t “particularly well known” and it “shone a light on something that not only is a Japanese setting but it’s a very specific time and place in Japanese history”. This “really resonated with a lot of developers”. It obviously resonated really well with players too, seeing as the game got a multiplayer mode and a DLC campaign. There are also frequent rumors of a sequel fueled by job listings at Sucker Punch.
In other news, the Playstation Store now has a weekend sale that offers discounts on more than 80 games and DLC items. Elsewhere, The Last of Us Part 1’s file size has been revealed alongside its DualSense features.
