Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut PC Review

The first Horizon was released on PC three and a half years after its initial release on PlayStation. Sony didn’t wait that long for the second part, releasing it on PC two years later. Returnal was an exclusive for a little less time, and The Last of Us Part I was only seven months old (despite the technical quality of the port). Ghost of Tsushima will be available to PC players almost four years after the original PS4 release. And while the quality of the game is immense and the team at Nixxes did a great job with the port, I have to ask: is it too little too late?

• Platform: PC (review version), PS4, PS5
• Publication date: 16.05.2024
• Developer: Sucker Punch Productions, Nixxes
• Publisher: Game console
• Genre: action role-playing game
• Czech localization: Yes
• Multiplayer: yes (legends mode)
• Data for download: 75 GB
• Play time: 40+ hours
• Price: 60 euros (Steam)

He runs like a stream

On a computer with a processor Intel Core i5-12400, 16GB RAM and video card RTX 3060 I played Ghost of Tsushima without any problems. The composition is higher than recommended and significantly higher than the minimum. It should be noted that it is aimed at the minimum quality.

At 1080p, the game maintained a stable 60 fps at recommended settings. high. At the highest possible graphics settings, the frame rate dropped only by a few units, to a minimum of 55 FPS, which I would not have noticed without a meter. That’s why I ultimately chose this option. In any case, you can also go into the partial settings.

I was able to run the game at native resolution. I highly recommend selecting DLAA if you have the option, as TAA by default causes significant flickering at 1080p. FSR doesn’t put the game to shame either, but it doesn’t eliminate flickering as well as DLSS/DLAA. Intel’s XeSS solution is the weakest after TAA. It eliminates flickering, but at the cost of visible blurring.

Technical problems have bypassed the game altogether. Loading is very fast, the port is not accompanied by freezes and crashes, bugs and more frequent graphical glitches, especially by the standards of an open world.

So we can move smoothly to the graphics processing, which hints at the fact described in the introduction. The origin of the game on the last generation of consoles is simply known. The quality of textures, the detail and animation of faces, and the lack of ray tracing during gameplay are regular reminders of the leap that video games have made in the last few years.

That said, Ghost of Tsushima is definitely not a bad game, and it still has what worked at the time of its release. The richness of the scenes, the amount of particle effects, the density of the vegetation, the camera work, the environment design and the imagination combined with a hint of stylization all create great moments. The title’s sharp edges are revealed precisely in those moments when it fails to use the said elements that make it visually strong most of the time.

Keyboard and mouse? With very long fingers

The game is coming to PC, so I held the mouse in one hand and rested my fingers on the W, A, S, and D keys with the other. As I soon realized, you need a lot more keys to fully control them. The basic quartet, supplemented by classic keys like Q, E, C, F, or Ctrl, is definitely not enough. To fully tame the samurai, you’ll have to stretch your arm even further. If you have the slightest opportunity to use the extra mouse buttons, do so. Or grab a gamepad, preferably with Dualsense support, of course.

For example, this circular menu – I know it’s made primarily for a gamepad, but it could have saved some clicking.

Because besides the number of keys used, I was also struck by their display. Fortunately, this can be adjusted to your liking. I know that creating such complex controls on a PC must have been an almost superhuman task for the developers, but I can imagine a few helpers. For example, this circular menu – I know that it was made primarily for a gamepad, but here you could save some pressing. Or a more pronounced slowdown. This is already an interference in the gameplay, but changing positions in battle was sometimes just a punishment.

Ghost and Samurai

The Director’s Cut version has been released on PC with all the content included. You won’t be missing out on the Iki Island story DLC or the Legends multiplayer mode. You can access it if you’re signed in to the PlayStation Network, and you can play the single-player game even without an account.

First of all, the base game remains the good old Ghost of Tsushima, which has made the dreams of many players come true. Assassin’s Creed action in JapanWhile the story isn’t overly complex, it does pay due attention to Japanese history, strong characters, and challenging dilemmas.

The open world works quite naturally, the authors do not overdo it with question marks on the map, and the player gets the impression that he really discovers the island. The well-balanced action is incredibly complex on both levels – you can enjoy revenge on the Mongols both as a ghost and as a samurai. The combat system, as well as stealth and assassinations from the shadows, will quickly turn into blood, and after the first few clumsy steps you will soon feel like a heroic warrior or a fearsome ninja.

It could also be a nice change for players who found the recent Assassin’s Creed games too big.

On a completely subjective level, I have to admit that I’ve been suffering from open-world fatigue lately, and even Ghost of Tsushima couldn’t stop it completely. On the other hand, it’s a reasonable size and certainly can’t be called uninteresting. It could also be a welcome change for players who found the latest Assassin’s Creed (and similar RPGs or adventure games) too big.

Finally, a small and not so important sigh about the Japanese lip sync that was added to the game along with the director’s cut, which I do not think is very successful. That is, up to a certain point, I thought that these were still animations for the default English. Otherwise, all that remains is to praise us – gamers without a PlayStation – for being able to see this gem of an action movie.