Ghost of Tsushima weapon upgrade and vendors outlined in new video

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See how you'll improve your weapons and gear

(Image credit: Sucker Punch)

The Ghost of Tsushima weapon upgrades get their moment in a new video from developer Sucker Punch.

The video shared on the official Sucker Punch Twitter account follows protagonist Jin Sakai as he enters a settlement - the Golden Temple - in search of an upgrade for his bow. Setting aside how picturesque the temple interior is (it is going to be a struggle not to spend the majority of each Ghost of Tsushima session in photo mode), the video gives us a look at how Jin will be able to improve his gear throughout the game.

Jin runs up to the Bowyer at her booth and heads straight into the upgrade menu. Side note: in Japanese, "ya" is a suffix that can be added to certain words to refer to a shop or seller of said item, so you could also call her the Bow-ya (sorry). In the upgrade menu, Jin can spend a certain amount of Bamboo and generic Supplies to have the Bow-ya improve his Half Bow to a Half Bow II. It looks like there's room for five ranks of the weapon in all, and each rank will seemingly confer improvements to a range of six stats.

Among those stats are draw speed, damage, and stability, which are sensible things to upgrade on a bow. It looks like you can also upgrade your bow so it zooms in more which is… interesting to think about, since it doesn't have a scope or anything? It must be a special layer of wood polish that helps bend the distant light so it converges in Jin's pupils. Or maybe it's just a video game thing and I should stop overthinking it.

If you prefer to fight face-to-face, Sucker Punch also showed off more Ghost of Tsushima combat stances today.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan
Former GamesRadar+ News Writer

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar+.