Ghost of Yotei creative director Jason Connell says the Ghost of Tsushima sequel's "standard" difficulty is actually quite challenging, and that's because "most" players prefer it that way – but that doesn't mean there aren't options for other fans, too.
The Sucker Punch developer explains as much during a recent interview with GamesRadar+, first recalling how playtesters found the game less fun the less challenging the studio made it. "This sounds crazy, but the easier we make the game, we found in testing, people liked it less. Not a true statement across the board, obviously," says Connell. The lead goes on to state that that's precisely why the team included a story mode – different strokes for different folks.
"We have story mode for a reason," as Connell puts it. "You don't have to play it the way we've designed it. That's why we give you options, right? You can play it on Lethal mode if you want, but we don't make Lethal mode the default, because we think that would alienate a bunch of people that might really just want to play the story, and they want to take it easy, and low intensity." Striking the perfect balance for an average fan isn't so simple, though.
"Finding the normal, the standard, the default, is actually the most challenging, because it's what you expect the most amount of players will be introduced to, and we have tuned that to be relatively difficult enough that there's a challenge, that it feels like you're getting value when you get a new weapon, when you learn a new skill, that you feel empowered," Connell describes. Getting the "normal" Ghost of Yotei difficulty to that point is no easy feat.
"That balance is really tough," he admits, "and sometimes you get it perfectly right, and sometimes something might be a little harder, but thank goodness we have a good philosophy on our approach to letting people [swap] difficulties if things are hard. We're not trying to make people gate an experience. We're trying to make them have a quite enjoyable experience that feels like you're not having to do that flipping and flopping around too much. That would be success for us."
The options are always there, however. "They're there if you want them, if you decide, 'I got two kids, it's hard for me to play a game for 100 hours. I'm down for playing a lower-intensity model. I'm into it, I want to enjoy the world.' And we have players like that, so we provide those options for people to help them out in those scenarios," Connell adds. His words certainly make sense.
After all, our own Ghost of Yotei review praises the "intense" difficulty as it works nicely alongside "the moment-to-moment satisfaction of doing everything right" – a statement that applies pretty accurately to Ghost of Tsushima, too, if you ask me.
Playing one of this year's best new games yet? Be sure to read through our Ghost of Yotei tips for the smoothest possible experience.
