Is Ghost of Tsushima Hard?
Ghost of Tsushima offers multiple difficulty settings, making it accessible for casual gamers while still challenging the veterans. In this article, we’ll be diving into what these settings are, and how each level of difficulty may or may not apply to your play style.
Understanding Ghost of Tsushima’s Difficulty Settings
Ghost of Tsushima has four levels of difficulty: Easy, Medium, Hard and Lethal. Each difficulty level dials up enemy aggression and their damage.
Lethality, however, has a bit of an interesting twist. While lethality is obviously the most difficult and challenging setting of the game, the damage is increased for both the player and the enemies, to the point where either you or the enemy (excluding bosses) can die in just one or two hits. While this might be intimidating at first, it gives great significance (and unparalleled satisfaction) to a successful dodge or parry.
Is Ghost of Tsushima Hard for Beginners?
Not if you choose low or medium difficulties. While it won’t be as easy as a mobile game might be, you will have a more story-centric experience where you get to focus mostly on the narrative and exploring its vast open world.
If you choose hard or lethal, the player can expect quite a challenge when facing enemies. While the game is definitely not anything like Dark Souls, enemies can be overwhelming at times, in some cases requiring the player to give an encounter a few tries before overcoming the enemy.
Do keep in mind that the difficulty setting can be changed at any point in the game in the settings menu!
Combat Difficulty: What to Expect
Ghost of Tsushima revolves around fast paced combat. Although the windows for parries and dodges are much wider for the lower difficulty modes, players coming from games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 will need to be quick on their feet. The same goes for hard and lethal mode, with timings being tighter for the mentioned actions.
Tips for Casual Gamers finding Ghost of Tsushima Difficult
If you are finding the combat to be a bit intimidating, there are quite a few ways to fix this in-game. The open world of Ghost of Tsushima heavily rewards exploration. It’s rich in activities and side quests that grant the player rewards like charms, which are equipable trinkets that can be rather powerful and able to change the tide of battle in your favour.
Players can also seek out bamboo strike activities. These are a sort of quick-time event style activity that has you click a sequence of buttons in order to slice several sticks of bamboo in one fell swoop. Other than looking incredibly cool for making you feel like a true samurai, it is important to do these as they upgrade your resolve. Resolve in Ghost of Tsushima is a stat which allows the player to heal or cast special moves during combat, making it an important resource in the heat of battle.
Final Verdict: Should You Play It?
I truly believe that Ghost of Tsushima is what the recent iterations of Assassin’s Creed wish they could be. Ghost of Tsushima managed to master the fluidity of stealth and the art of full-blown war, paired nicely with great narrative and character development.
So should you play Ghost of Tsushima? Most definitely yes! As a guy who seeks story-driven video games, I genuinely enjoyed playing this game. Although I do consider myself a casual gamer, I opted to play it on lethal mode. This allowed me to better experience the game as it made every action I took have weight and purpose, nudging me to use every item and weapon in my arsenal to overcome the enemies. Every player should choose a difficulty they are comfortable with, but I personally recommend giving lethal mode a try, as it makes you feel like you’re wielding a real katana.
