Sucker Punch, the developer of Ghost of Tsushima, has shared how the game's combat is balanced around three key core ideas: speed, sharpness, and precision.
Let's explain what that means. Sucker Punch simply wants the combat in their game to feel fast, weapons to be dangerous, and techniques to require mastery to pull off perfectly. Sucker Punch's CEO Chris Zimmerman said that the team had to work quite a lot to get these three philosophies to blend together.
Zimmerman said that while undertaking this feat, main protagonist Jin's attacks were fast enough, but enemy attacks weren't quite fast and it took a lot of time and effort on the team's part to get this working harmoniously.
The fast and precise combat style was achieved by keeping Jin's attack speed up while allowing enemies to wind up for an attack while Jin is busy with a different enemy, leaving Jin very little time to deal with multiple enemies. Zimmerman emphasized that staying focused and concentrated can help players to survive fights despite engaging multiple enemies. Zimmerman also said that Jin has slower, but more powerful attacks, though these attacks can be canceled in case the player needs to block or parry an oncoming attack.
Talking about parries, Jin will block most oncoming attacks, but holding down L1 and pressing L1 right before an attack lands will parry the attack. Zimmerman stated that parrying attacks will leave enemies open for powerful counter-attacks.
Additionally, Jin is also said to have specific stances that can be switched on the fly during fights. There will probably be certain stances that Jin will have to take on before engaging specific enemy types. For example, Jin has Stone Stance, which is for swordsmen, and Water Stance, which is for enemies carrying shields.
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