Ghost of Tsushima players help raise $260,000 to restore the island's real-life shrine

Ghost of Tsushima players have helped to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to help restore a real-life shrine on Tsushima Island in Japan. 

On September 7 2020, a typhoon hit the island, destroying the Torii gate situated at the shrine. In November, one of the shrine's priests, Yuichi Hirayama, launched a crowdfunding page with the aim of raising 5,000,000 Yen ($47,500). The crowdfunding effort to rebuild a Torii gate at Watatsumi Shrine, in the centre of the island, smashed its original goal with help from the game's community. As Hirayama later wrote, however, the fund "received a great deal of support from the players of the Ghost of Tsushima game." Overall, more than 2,000 people donated more than $27,000,000 Yen, or around $260,000, more than 500% of the original goal.

Rebuilding work on the gate is expected to begin in April and be completed by August, although COVID-19 restrictions could hinder progress. Those who donated more than 10,000 Yen (around $95) to the campaign will have their names etched on a stainless steel plate which will be laid as part of the rebuilding process.

The shrine itself doesn't appear in the game, which was released in July last year, but according to VGC, the site's Twitter account often posts about the game and its portrayal of Tsushima Island. Ghost of Tsushima was an immediate hit, selling more than 2.4 million copies in its opening days and becoming PlayStation's most successful original IP launch, beating out the record set by Horizon Zero Dawn in 2017. 

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