Though they’re not essential to finishing the game or unlocking all the cool upgrades you can get in Ghost of Tsushima, some of the more interesting places to find in the game are its Haiku locations. There are 19 in total, and stopping by each one earns you a cosmetic headband to add to your collection of outfits for Jin Sakai. Haikus give you a chance to enjoy the scenery of Ghost of Tsushima in a quiet moment while you quickly compile a haiku poem about a specific concept.
Of all the Haiku locations in the game, the easiest to miss is the one developer Sucker Punch expects you to find first. That’s the Haiku spot near Hiyoshi Springs. If you find it, this first Haiku is meant to function as a tutorial for the rest of them, introducing you to the Haiku concept and showing you what such locations are like. But if you don’t explore around Hiyoshi, it might be the last Haiku you find. Here’s where to locate the Haiku spot and what you need to do to activate it.
To find the Haiku, head into the hills north of Hiyoshi Springs. Look for a man kneeling on a rock who will call out to you. This villager is a Haiku poet and he’ll give you a quick rundown on the art form. It’s a bit of a story moment that activates the Haiku’s availability.
Unlike other Haikus, the one near Hiyoshi Springs isn’t just a spot you discover on the map. Ghost of Tsushima expects you to head to Hiyoshi Springs pretty early in the game and to explore the area around it. You’ll find both your first Haiku and your first Hot Springs here if you look around.
After you find the villager, the Haiku location will appear on your map as normal–but you need to talk to the villager near the spot first. The rest of the locations are scattered around the map and discoverable by getting close to them. You can also use the Wind of Vanity upgrade in the samurai skill menu to take you to Haiku locations. It’s worth noting, however, that several Haikus are part of story quests. You’ll unlock two as part of the main story campaign, and one in Yuriko’s character tales.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a valentine to ’90s nerd culture: video games, comics, and the emergent world wide web. It was a critically acclaimed, faithful adaptation of the Bryan O’Malley comic series that inspired it. But when it was released in 2010, it was a box office bomb, making back a little over half of its $85 million dollar budget.
Directed and co-written by Edgar Wright, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World has since become a cult classic, and no wonder; it is a near-perfect cinematic experience. Too often, filmmakers use a fraction of the storytelling tools available to them. In most films, the camera is a functional bystander, only there to dispassionately record the actors’ dialogue.
Wright, on the other hand, is a master at using camera work and auditory cues to tell more of a story than what is simply stated. Characters enter and leave the frame at odd moments. No two scene transitions are the same. The movie has continuous, forward momentum; the camera never stops moving. It’s impossible to be bored when the filmmakers handle the act of washing hands with four different shots in a five second span. It’s the type of film that rewards repeat viewings; there are so many visual and audio gags that it’s impossible to catch them all.
In honor of the film’s upcoming 10th anniversary on August 13 and the cast reunion table-read on July 20, here are 45 of the best Easter Eggs in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
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1. Narrator
Bill Hader plays The Voice. He narrates several parts of the movie, including the beginning, when he establishes context before we meet any of the characters, and mid-way through, when he explains Scott’s breakup with Envy Adams.
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2. 16-Bit Zelda
The song during the establishing shot of Young Neil’s house is the title theme for the Super Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Sound effects from various games, including Zelda and Sonic the Hedgehog, are used throughout the movie.
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3. Sex Bob-Omb
A Bob-Omb is an enemy type from the Mario franchise. It made its debut in the 8-bit classic Super Mario Bros. 3, where it attacked Mario with a timed explosion.
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4. Soy Un Perdedor
The movie professes, both explicitly and implicitly, a love for alternative rock. The filmmakers hired Beck to write all of Sex Bob-Omb’s songs.
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5. Opening Credits
The movie’s opening credits tell us a little something about each actor’s character. Brie Larson, for example, has a broken heart graphic because her character, Envy Adams, breaks up with Scott before the events of the movie. Alison Pill has a “One-Two-Three-Four!” countdown graphic next to her name, because her character, Kim, is the drummer for Sex Bob-Omb.
The credits sequence came from a suggestion by writer/director Quentin Tarantiono, who felt the movie needed a moment to “settle in.”
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6. Snowy X
The filmmakers scattered multiple X’s throughout the movie to allude to the “Seven Evil Exes” Scott has to defeat. You can see this snow X when Knives and Scott are walking home after their date at the arcade. It also foreshadows a metaphorical crossroads for Scott’s romantic life, when he has to choose between Ramona and Knives.
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7. The Kiss
Scott Pilgrim has a poster on the wall that should be recognizable to any early ’00s college student. It hung on the wall of every dorm, right next to the Bob Marley poster, the Bluto poster, and the Tony Montana poster.
The photo, called “The Kiss,” was taken by photographer Tanya Chalkin. It was commissioned as part of an ad campaign for Queer Company, which provided financial services for an LGBT clientele.
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8. Lucas Lee Foreshadowing
The movie sets up Lucas Lee’s character early on. You can see one of his movie advertisements on the newspaper that Wallace is reading.
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9. Multiple Takes
The blind toss that Scott makes, throwing an Amazon package into a garbage can, was done with no special effects or trickery. It took Michael Cera 33 takes to get it right.
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10. Seven X’s
When Ramona gives her phone number to Scott, she includes seven X’s under her number, alluding to her Seven Evil Exes.
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11. Crash and the Boys
The band Crash and the Boys is named after the 1992 NES game Crash ‘n’ The Boys: Street Challenge. It’s a sports game that crosses track competition with a street sensibility. Envy’s band, The Clash at Demonhead, is also named after an NES adventure platformer of the same name.
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12. Plumtree T-Shirt
Scott wears a Plumtree shirt to the Battle of the Bands at the Rockit. Plumtree is a Canadian indie rock band, and Scott Pilgrim is named after Plumtree’s single of the same name.
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13. Number One
Matthew Patel is Ramona’s first ex-boyfriend, and appropriately, he has a single Chevron on his military jacket.
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14. Shoryuken
Scott delivers what is unmistakably a Shoryuken to Matthew Patel’s jaw. The Dragon Punch is Ryu and Ken’s signature move in the Street Fighter franchise and is performed by pressing Toward, Down, Down/Toward, and any Punch button.
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15. Co-Writer Cameo
The audience member who asks if Matthew Patel is a pirate is Michael Bacall, who co-wrote the movie’s screenplay.
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16. KO Voice
The “KO!” announcer at the end of the Matthew Patel fight sounds nearly identical to the fight announcer from the Street Fighter Alpha series.
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17. Exes and Hearts
When Scott and Ramona are riding on the bus together, you should look in the background at the passing lights. When Ramona begins the conversation, there are X’s in the background. Then, as the conversation turns more romantic, those X’s change to hearts.
Scott always has hearts in his background, which makes sense; he’s smitten by Ramona even before she knows his name.
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18. A Movie About Nothing
After Ramona and Scott make their relationship official, Scott enters Wallace’s room to canned sitcom applause and the Seinfeld bass line.
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19. Numbered Trailer
Lucas Lee, Ramona’s second ex, has the number 2 painted on his trailer. When he exits, it’s to the Universal logo theme, and he moves in sync with its musical cues.
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20. Two-Fingered Point
There are multiple “2” references throughout this scene. Lucas Lee points at Scott Pilgrim with two fingers. He also says that it will take him two minutes to kick Scott’s ass.
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21. Photo Booth
During the phone conversation between Envy and Scott, pay attention to the background. You can see a sequential series of photobooth strips. It concludes with Envy leaving the frame, thus dumping Scott.
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22. Traffic Signs
When Scott is looking over his shoulder after fighting Lucas Lee, there’s a head-on shot that shows seven crossing signs, one for each ex that Scott has to fight.
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23. Xavier’s School
Scott rips an X-Men patch off his jacket sleeve. Several of Ramona’s exes have mutant-like powers. Matthew Patel has flamethrowing abilities like Pyro (although Pyro could not generate the flame on his own whereas Matthew can), and Roxy Richter has teleportation powers similar to Nightcrawler (complete with wisps of black smoke).
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24. No Blinking!
Edgar Wright asked Brie Larson to film all of her scenes without blinking, in order to give her character an anime-esque quality.
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25. The Infinite Sadness
The chapter break’s name is taken from the Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Its hit singles included “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” “1979,” “Zero,” “Tonight Tonight,” and “33.”
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26. Surprised Face
When Knives finds out that Scott dated Envy, she gets a “surprised” face, an emoticon composed of a colon followed by a lower-case o.
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27. A Hole In The Moon
Ramona says that Todd, her third ex, punched a hole in the moon for her. This is no exaggeration. Whenever the camera scrolls up to the moon during the movie, you can see the hole in its upper-left side.
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28. Multiple Threes
Todd is the third of Ramona’s exes, and he wears a painted number 3 on his T-shirt. You can also see a 3 tacked on the back wall via a flyer.
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29. Trash Can
During the Todd fight, Scott gets thrown into the back alley of the club, which also has multiple 3’s painted on a trash can.
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30. Pumpkins Fan
Scott Pilgrim is evidently a Smashing Pumpkins fan. In the first scene of the movie, he’s wearing a shirt with the SP heart logo. During the fight against Todd, he’s wearing Billy Corgan’s iconic Zero shirt, which the frontman wore in the music video for “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.”
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31. Four Bar
The bar where Scott fights Roxy, Ramona’s fourth ex, has a giant number 4 over its doorway.
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32. Soul Calibur Tribute
Roxy has a bladed whip similar to the one that Ivy Valentine uses in the Soul Calibur franchise and the Belmont family uses in the Castlevania franchise.
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33. Laminated Card
Ramona comments, sarcastically, that she’ll give Scott a laminate of all the exes he has to fight. Minutes later, she gives him a list, and if you look closely, it’s laminated.
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34. Fantastic Four And One-Third
Scott wears a Fantastic Four and One-Third Shirt at a midway point: after his fight with Roxy (the fourth ex) and before his fight with the Katayanagi Twins (the fifth and sixth exes).
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35. Guitar Hero
During his Amp vs. Amp battle against the Katayanagi Twins, Scott Pilgrim wears the bass logo from the Guitar Hero franchise on his T-shirt.
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36. Turn it Up To 11
The Katayanagi Twins have a volume knob that goes up to eleven, a reference to the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap. Also, the twins are Ramona’s fifth and sixth exes–5+6=11.
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37. Green-Eyed Monster
The Katayanagi battle pits the Twins’ dragons–a possible reference to the Double Dragons franchise–against a massive green-eyed monster. A green-eyed monster is often used in popular culture as a metaphor for jealousy. Scott has jealousy stemming from his insecurity over Ramona’s past, and accordingly, his eyes turn green during the battle.
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38. Chaos Theatre
The Chaos Theater is a location in the Super Nintendo RPG Earthbound. It is located in the digital town of Twoson.
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39. Exploding Into Coins
When Scott defeats his opponents, they explode into coins. This is a video game trope that was popularized in the NES game River City Ransom, and was later memorably applied in the Wii hit No More Heroes (which also featured an energy beam sword).
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40. Better Than The Comic?
When Scott Pilgrim heads into the Chaos Theater, you can overhear Michael Comeau saying, “The comic book is better than the movie.” It’s a meta-joke, since this movie is an adaptation of Bryan O’Malley’s comic series.
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41. Plus Seven
As Ramona’s seventh ex, Gideon is surrounded by references to the number 7. His beam sword, for example, has +7 stat buffs.
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42. Nearly Dead
When Knives, Ramona, Gideon, or Scott take damage during the final battle, they start to blink red. In arcade games, especially beat ’em ups like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Simpsons, flashing or turning red was a visual cue that the end-stage boss was close to defeat.
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43. Triforce Power
Gideon’s logo looks like the Triforce from The Legend of Zelda franchise. The Triforce is an enchanted relic made up of three golden triangles–Power, Wisdom, and Courage–that form a bigger triangle when joined at their corners.
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44. Subspace Travel
The free-standing, fast-travel doors throughout the movie are reminiscent of the subspace doors in NES classic Super Mario Bros. 2, which transported Mario to a parallel dark dimension. Mario conjured these subspace doors by dropping a beaker of Potion, and he occasionally used them to warp to later levels. The star on the door is a reference to the Nintendo 64 launch game Super Mario 64, which used stars as a currency to unlock differently tiered doors in Peach’s castle.
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45. Scott Pilgrim Sprite
After the end credits, a video game sprite version of Scott Pilgrim destroys “The End.” Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game was released on the Playstation Network (and later on XBox Live) three days before the release of the film. Critically acclaimed, the game is currently delisted and unavailable to download, although both O’Malley and Wright have pushed for its re-release.
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Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company
PS5 exclusive Spider-Man: Miles Morales is getting a Performance Mode which will run the game at 4K/60FPS, according to a tweet from developer Insomniac Games, but what will its Quality Mode look like? Unfortunately we don’t know yet.
Halo Infinite’s structure is going to be different from other Halo games according to Phil Spencer. He said in an interview that the structure of the game is going to be similar in ways to the Master Chief Collection. We’ll likely find out more information during the Xbox Series X stream on Thursday, July 23 at 9 AM PT.
Shin Megami Tensei 5 was announced for the Nintendo Switch during today’s Nintendo Direct Mini and will be coming out 2021, though there’s no specific release date yet. Alongside that announcement, it was also revealed that Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne HD is on its way for PS4 and Nintendo Switch spring 2021.
And hey, while you’re here, GameSpot launched its own merch store. Until the end of August, all the proceeds will be split between Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 relief.
Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film Tenet has been delayed yet again. This time, however, it’s been pushed back indefinitely, meaning that a new release will be scheduled whenever the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is no longer a factor. Given that most movie theaters are still closed, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
Originally, Tenet was supposed to hit theaters last week, on July 17. However, it was delayed until July 31, before then being pushed to August 12, as it is seemingly trying to give New Mutants some competition for most scheduled release dates. In a statement, the chairman of Warner Bros., said, “We will share a new 2020 release date imminently for Tenet, Christopher Nolan’s wholly original and mind-blowing feature. Unfortunately, the pandemic continues to proliferate, causing us to re-evaluate our release dates.”
So what’s a Christopher Nolan fan to do when they were expecting to watch a new movie from the director and try to figure out what it means? What better time to dip back into his filmography and, instead, finally get to the bottom of his long list of movies like 1998’s Following or his war film Dunkirk. Chances are you’ve seen his Batman trilogy far too many times to count at this point, so don’t concern yourself with those.
Here are the Christopher Nolan movies to binge while you wait for whenever you’re actually going to get to see Tenet.
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1. Following (1998)
Nolan’s debut focuses on a struggling writer who decides to start following people around London as inspiration for a novel, leading him into a dark criminal underworld. Following was cheaply made in back and white with very variable acting and only runs for 69 minutes (nice). Nevertheless, the roots of Nolan’s subsequent films are all here, from the non-linear structure to themes of identity and obsession. It’s a fascinating and engrossing film that shows the director’s talents were formed early on. – Dan Auty
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2. Memento (2000)
Nolan has been melting brains since the early days of his career, and Memento is a fine example. Guy Pearce attempts to track down his wife’s murderer while suffering from short-term memory loss, which means he knows who he is and most of his past, but can’t remember anything that happens on a day-to-day basis. To compensate, he leaves himself notes in the form of tattoos scrawled across his body. If you’re looking for classic Nolan-esque twists and turns, remember to watch Memento. – Michael Rougeau
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3. Insomnia (2002)
Insomnia is the only Nolan movie that he doesn’t also have a writing credit on. It’s a remake of a 1997 Norweigan movie with the same title, and at the time was most notable for the casting of Robin Williams as a killer. But it remains a gripping and atmospheric thriller, with Al Pacino in relatively restrained form as a cop investigating a murder in a small Alaskan town, and Williams utterly chilling as his main suspect. And if the film doesn’t really connect thematically to Nolan’s films, it’s still important for being his first studio movie, the success of which led to even bigger things. – Dan Auty
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4. The Prestige (2006)
“Are you watching closely?” is both a key line and one of the taglines of The Prestige, and it serves as essential advice going into the film. Adapted from the novel by Christopher Priest, Nolan’s film about rival magicians is a must-watch. Set in 1890s London, stage magicians Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) become bitter rivals, battling each other to develop the ultimate illusion no matter the cost. If you’ve gone this long without spoilers, going into The Prestige without previous knowledge and going along for the ride is the best way to experience it. It’s mesmerizing, challenges its audience, and deserves repeat viewings. – Chastity Vicencio
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5. Inception (2010)
Before Nolan made a single Batman film, he had the idea for Inception back in 2002. At the time, though, he admits he wasn’t ready. Following The Dark Knight, though, he made this very strange and engaging heist film that doesn’t necessarily play out like any other you ever have or ever will see. It’s not money or jewels Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team are after, it’s information and secrets. To get that data, they break into one of the most complex systems imaginable: the human brain. Inception sees these thieves actually implanting themselves in the dreams of their targets, attempting to both access the information and not get lost in the process. It’s a truly bizarre film that will find you wondering what was and wasn’t real by the time the credits roll. – Chris E. Hayner
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6. Interstellar (2014)
Space, the final frontier, right? While many science fiction movies romanticize adventuring among the stars, Nolan’s 2014 film presents the harsh realities of space travel. The alright alright alright Matthew McConaughey plays an astronaut who is tasked with finding another planet for humans to live on because Earth’s future is pretty screwed. In doing so, he must travel through a wormhole, which, as you can imagine, isn’t easy. And as much as this film is a quest for the future of humanity, it’s also about being a parent and trying to connect with your kid. Also, in typical Nolan fashion, it gets real trippy later on in the film, which we won’t spoil here. – Mat Elfring
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7. Dunkirk (2017)
In the handful of years since its release, it’s become ever more clear that Dunkirk belongs in the ranks of all-time great war movies. An incredible ensemble cast experiences the infamous World War II evacuation from multiple perspectives, as time passes differently in each storyline–one takes place over the course of a week, one a day, and one a single hour. Come on, it’s Nolan–you didn’t think Dunkirk would be straightforward, did you? – Michael Rougeau
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8. Also, just watch his Batman movies
Don’t be so picky about this and just go watch Nolan’s Batman movies. That’s, at least, another six hours of movies to pass the time until another release date is set for Tenet. Besides, there’s something to enjoy about all three of those movies. And when you get to The Dark Knight, take a look at GameSpot’s deep dive into the film to help you find the Easter eggs and references you missed the last time you watched it. – Chris E. Hayner
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Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company
Shadow Warrior 3 was just announced earlier this month, and now we’ve got a look at the game’s full first mission. The video below shows off the Way to Motoko level, where series hero Lo Wang will need to kill a whole bunch of weird, wonderful monsters–and where he gets his hands on the grappling hook you’ll be using throughout the game.
The video spends a lot of its runtime focusing on the game’s environments, which will crumble and collapse as you run through them. The destructible environments are shown off when Wang drops a bell on a group of enemies, causing the ground to cave in beneath them.
Some plot details are revealed in the video too, which shows Lo Wang and an older associate preparing to take on a dragon. The video contains several jokes and comedy moments, although mileage may vary on how amusing you find them.
Easily the most exciting parts of the video are the fights, though. The game’s combat is highlighted, showing how frantic it is when enemies are swarming you, and some of the designs are wild–especially the weird accordion-shaped enemy that shoots fireworks at Wang midway through.
If this first mission is an indication, there should be some real variety in the enemies you fight. It also shows that you can grab weapons out of some enemies and use them to attack others–including a freeze-all bomb and the firework launcher the accordian attacks Wang with.
Shadow Warrior 3 will launch on PC, PS4, and Xbox One next year. It’s developed by Flying Wild Hog, the same developer as the previous two Shadow Warrior games.
NHL 21 is still coming, EA has announced, but it’ll be later than usual. The series, which has traditionally debuted new releases in September, will instead release its latest game in October this year. An exact date has not been announced.
In a post on the game’s website, the community team has promised that we’ll get a definite release date, a first look, and “plans for the next-gen consoles” in August, and NHL 21 has been confirmed for PS4 and Xbox One. PS5 and Xbox Series X will not receive their own versions, but the game will be playable on those systems through backwards compatibility.
The delay has come due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has slowed work on the game.
“We’re happy to say that the game is on track and feature-complete against our original vision, we just need a few extra weeks to do the polish, fine tuning, and bug fixing,” the post reads. “We know some of you will be disappointed by this news, but our goal with NHL 21 is to deliver an experience that will be worth the wait.”
NHL 20 players will also find that free HUT packs have been added to the in-game store, while some WOC bags are now available in inventories, to make up for the longer wait. NHL 20 was superb, so hopes are high for next year’s entry.
Some of EA’s other sports franchises are going to be cross-gen this year, including Madden NFL 21 and FIFA 21. Meanwhile, the publisher is also returning to UFC this year for UFC 4, which releases August 14.
Talking to Bro Bible, the Russos were questioned about earlier comments they’ve made about Secret Wars, an 80s comic run in which a cosmic entity transports many of Marvel’s heroes to the planet “Battleworld” to fight against various foes. According to Joe Russo, this comic was big for him as a child–and he’d love to help realize it on-screen.
“I read that when I was 10 or 11, and it was the scale of getting all of the heroes together,” Joe recalls. “It was one of the first major books to do that–that was really event-storytelling to me at its finest.” He also enjoyed that the heroes and villains had to team up at various points. “(Anthony) and I like complicated relationships between heroes and villains, we like villains who believe they’re heroes in their own stories,” he says.
“To execute something on the scale of Infinity War was directly related to the dream of Secret Wars, which is even larger in scale,” he continues.
Anthony is similarly enthusiastic about the idea. “It would be the biggest movie you could possibly imagine, so that’s what really excites us about the story,” he says. “The ambition of it is even bigger than the ambition of the Infinity Saga.”
Right now, the Marvel Cinematic Universe does not have a particularly strong list of (surviving) villains to pull from–although since the Disney buyout of Fox, X-Men and Fantastic Four villains can be called upon.
The next film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Black Widow. It’s currently scheduled to arrive in November, if cinemas can open by then.
If there’s anything that folks who have been following Ghost of Tsushima since its 2017 reveal have been looking forward to, it’s running around 13th century Japan dressed like a proto-ninja and striking fear in the hearts of the Mongol army. Protagonist Jin, in his striking black custom samurai armor, has been a big part of Ghost of Tsushima’s marketing, clearly made to illustrate the masked vigilante he’s willing to become to defeat the threat invading his home. As such, it’s a no-brainer that you’d want to outfit yourself with this rad looking armor set–known in-game as the Ghost Armor–as soon as possible.
But if you’ve been playing Ghost of Tsushima, it may come as a bit of shock realizing that the Ghost Armor isn’t unlocked early on. So you might be wondering: “When does Jin obtain the Ghost Armor?”
To answer this question, you get Ghost Armor the moment you start the From the Darkness story missionat the end of Act 2. We won’t spoil the circumstances that warrant receiving the set but know that you have to make it over halfway through the story to get the Ghost Armor. For guidance on how to get to this point in the story, be sure to check out our Ghost of Tsushima Act 2 walkthrough. Lastly, it’s worth noting that when you first get the Ghost Armor, it doesn’t look the way it does on the cover and promotional art until you craft its second upgrade.
All this may seem like a bummer, but there are plenty of other fantastic armor sets to get by the end of Act 2, many of which are just as useful as they are aesthetically pleasing. If you’re curious about every armor set, be sure to check out our Ghost of Tsushima armor guide.
When it comes to the benefits of the Ghost Armor, it should come as no surprise that it rewards stealthy players. When equipped, it reduces enemy detection speed, the number of kills needed to enter the all-powerful Ghost Stance, and even increases the chances of terrifying a nearby enemy after killing some of their friends.
If you’re curious about what the Ghost Armor set looks like and upon subsequent upgrades, take a look at the image gallery. And if you need help finding the materials needed to upgrade the Ghost Armor once you get it, be sure to read our crafting resource guide–which details where to get the materials needed to improve your armor.
Ustwo games, the developer of Monument Valley, has unveiled their next game–and it’ll be their first console release. The game, Alba: A Wildlife Adventure, has released a first trailer, but don’t expect any gameplay footage from it.
The trailer shows a sign-up sheet for a “clean-up initiative,” a bird book, and a newspaper article about two young girls starting a wildlife league. One of those girls, at least, appears to be playable.
You can watch the trailer below and admire its cute art style.
The game looks like it could be set on an island, and like travel by boat will be part of the experience, although nothing is confirmed just yet.
The game is coming to “”iOS, macOS, and tvOS, plus PC and console”. The trailer does not reveal which consoles the games are coming to, though. Judging by the trailer, we’d expect a PS4/Xbox One/Switch release, but nothing has been confirmed.
Ustwo Games’ previous release, Assemble With Care, is available on PC and through Apple Arcade.
The last thing standing in my way of the Platinum for Ghost of Tsushima was a hidden Trophy called Cooper Clan Cosplayer. The description was cryptic, but not especially confusing: “Dress up as a legendary thief.” Though I’m not a fan, the GameSpot team and I figured out the reference immediately: Tsushima developer Sucker Punch’s Sly Cooper franchise. I googled some pics of Sly Cooper, a raccoon who does heists, and went to work figuring out what items in Tsushima might constitute cosplay.
The trouble is, there are a lot of cosmetic items in Ghost of Tsushima, and none of them look particularly like what Sly Cooper wears. Several sets of in-game armor have unlockable color schemes similar to those in that game–Sly wears a blue tunic, a yellow scarf, and a red belt. But there are about eight armor sets and none of them look like sneaky raccoon thief gear. Also, the “raccoon” part feels important, so does “cosplay” require Jin to, uh, dress up as an animal?
This sent me spinning my wheels for a couple days. I got a few items that seemed essential to unlocking the Trophy, but I wasn’t sure I was getting the combination right, or if I was missing something. After a while, I started to suspect there was more gear I needed but didn’t yet have. Ghost of Tsushima tells you what rewards you get for each set of collectibles, and I’d gotten all the Vanity Gear that would seem to be part of this Trophy. But I didn’t have all the Sashimono banners that unlock new horse saddles. I hadn’t purchased every single armor dye. I didn’t have full 100% completion–maybe that’s what I needed to unlock some kind of Sly Cooper samurai armor or raccoon mask or floppy hat.
Guess what: That was not what I needed. The Trophy was actually much easier to unlock than I realized. There’s no reason to get everything in Ghost of Tsushima unless you really want to, and actually, you shouldn’t. You should find, unlock, and earn exactly as much as you enjoy finding, unlocking, and earning, because Tsushima is one of the rare open-world games that doesn’t expect you to become obsessed with it or to waste your time kicking over every rock and scouring every corner.
See this mask? I got this mask for finding all 49 Inari Shrines. It was not part of the cosplay thing. (Also none of these 80 banners mattered.)
My big trouble with the open-world genre at large is its tendency to pack in stuff for stuff’s sake. People often complain about the in-game maps in games like Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry becoming an overwhelming eyesore as they bristle with markers for quests, collectibles, upgrades, crafting materials, and all kinds of other junk. There’s a feeling that open-world games have to smash in as much #content as they possibly can to keep you as busy as you can possibly be, even if a lot of that content is just a rehash of an already boring idea, like climbing another tower to reveal the map or collecting 45 boar skins to make the pockets in your in-game pants slightly deeper. Sometimes these games even gate the actually interesting content behind the dull collection stuff–you can’t play the next story mission until you’ve crafted a bigger wallet, so you’ll need to go skin 18 black bears killed with a bolt-action rifle while driving a moped.
To be fair, Tsushima has a version of this problem too. Find the 49 Inari Shrines in the game so you can equip four Minor Charms instead of two. Gather 50 Mongol Artifacts so you can then look at a menu that contains a paragraph of historical context about each one. Track down 80 Sashimono Banners, with each milestone in your collection unlocking a slightly different color scheme for your horse’s saddle.
The good news about Ghost of Tsushima is that it’s actually pretty forgiving about this part. The menu information about every set of collectibles tells you exactly what you earn for finding them, giving you an immediate sense of whether you want to spend the time. You can earn the Platinum Trophy, something that definitely matters to some players, without scouring the game for every stupid and useless item. Most of the collection-based Trophies are about finding locations more than objects, and those locations also convey in-game benefits while also giving a little bit of gameplay–so even finding all 49 Inari Shrines upgrades your character while providing a bunch of tiny puzzles to solve. It seems like Sucker Punch is aware that a lot of its collectibles don’t actually matter to the game and are just stuff for stuff’s sake, so the Trophies tied to them unlock when you’re about halfway through finding all of them instead of when you get every last one. In fact, the Trophies on these collectibles trigger at around the number you might find incidentally as you play if you’re keeping your eyes open.
In general, it’s a nice approach to the open-world’s tendency of providing players a ton of long to-do lists of items to tick off. I’m the kind of person who can get caught up in completionist urges about games, and Tsushima does players like me a favor: It doesn’t force us to find it all. We can scratch the find-everything itch without it becoming an irritating chore. We can hit that Platinum completion status without running the game completely into the ground hunting for stuff.
There’s a lot of cool stuff to find in Ghost of Tsushima. If you feel like it.
And yet, I still did. I found every banner. I unlocked every saddle. I rode across Tsushima picking up flowers so I could buy every armor die. I found literally everything there is in Ghost of Tsushima. Just in case.
And all I got for that effort was a little message toward the end that basically said, “Wow, good job!”
So take it from me: You don’t need to get everything in Ghost of Tsushima. Do as much or as little as you like. There’s no special armor, cutscene, story point, or extra reward if you do it all, though; there’s only the fun you get out of the game. I wish I’d known that before I went looking for all those flowers.
