Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut Review for PC

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

• Platform: PC (review version), PS4, PS5
• Publication date: 05/16/2024
• Developer: Sucker Punch Productions, Nixxes
• Publisher: Game console
• Genre: action role-playing game
• Czech localization: Yes
• Multiplayer: yes (legends mode)
• Download data: 75 GB
• Game time: 40+ hours
• Price: 60 euros (Steam)

On a computer with a processor Intel Core i5-12400, 16 GB RAM and video card PTX 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 aims for minimum quality.

At 1080p, the game maintained a stable 60 frames per second at recommended settings. high. At the highest possible graphics settings, the frame rate dropped by only a few, 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 access partial settings.

I was able to run the game in native resolution. I highly recommend choosing DLAA anti-aliasing if you have the option, as TAA causes significant flickering at 1080p by default. FSR doesn’t put the game to shame either, but it doesn’t eliminate flicker as well as DLSS/DLAA. Intel’s XeSS solution is the weakest after TAA. Flicker is eliminated, but at the cost of visible image blur.

Technical problems completely avoided the game. Loading is very fast, the port is not accompanied by freezes and crashes, bugs and more frequent graphical glitches, especially by open world standards.

Thus, we can smoothly move on to graphical processing, which hints at the fact described in the introduction. The origins of the game on the latest generation of consoles are simply known. The quality of the 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 past few years.

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

The game is coming to PC, so I held the mouse in one hand and placed my other fingers on the W, A, S and D keys. As I soon realized, you need many more keys to fully control them. You definitely won’t be satisfied with a basic quartet complemented by classic keys like Q, E, C, F or Ctrl. To fully tame a samurai, you will have to extend your arm even further. If you have even the slightest opportunity to use additional mouse buttons, do so. Or take a gamepad, preferably one with Dualsense support, of course.

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

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

Director’s Cut has been released on PC with all the content. You won’t be deprived of the Iki Island story DLC or the Legends multiplayer mode. It can be accessed if you are logged into 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 made the dreams of many players come true. Assassin’s Creed action in Japan. While the story isn’t overly complex, it does have the right emphasis on Japanese history, strong characters, and complex 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 is really discovering the island. The well-balanced action is incredibly challenging on both levels – you can enjoy revenge on the Mongols as both a ghost and a samurai. The combat system, as well as stealth and assassinations from the shadows, quickly turn to blood, and after the first few steps, you’ll soon feel like a heroic warrior or a feared ninja.

This could also be a nice change for players for whom recent Assassin’s Creed games were too big.

Totally subjective, I have to admit that I’ve been suffering from open world fatigue lately, and even Ghost of Tsushima couldn’t completely stop it. On the other hand, it has a reasonable area and certainly cannot be called uninteresting. It could also be a welcome change for players for whom the last Assassin’s Creed (and similar RPGs or adventure games) were too much.

Finally, a small and not so important sigh about the Japanese lip sync, which was added to the game along with the director’s cut and which I did not think was very successful. That is, until a certain moment I thought that these were animations for default English. Otherwise, we can only praise the fact that we – non-PlayStation gamers – were able to see this action gem.