Ghost of Tsushima Depicts the Tragedy of War

An example of mournful contemplation rather than bombastic celebration

Sucker Punch’s latest triple-A title, Ghost Of Tsushima (which also happens to be one of the PlayStation 4’s swan songs before we enter the next generation of consoles) tells one of the most tragic fictional tales, based on true events. The protagonist of the story, Jin Sakai, is a man that is forced to abandon everything he knows in order to have a fighting chance in front of the overwhelming cruelty brought on by the ones invading his home.

The game’s story begins on the evening of November 4th, 1274 on Komoda beach of Tsushima island. It was that night when an overwhelming fleet of Mongolians took on a much smaller army of samurai that were protecting their homeland and obliterated them.

In the game, Jin is one of the few survivors of that battle and after being nursed back to health, he begins to do whatever is necessary in order to retake his land from the barbarians lead by the cunning Khotun Khan.

As you begin to travel all around the island as Jin and proceed to take on the Mongols, you meet many people along the way. More often than not, their tales are those of loss and pain. You can see that everything they had, the people that they loved, and all their possessions, everything has been burned down by the flames of war. They desperately ask Jin for his help or in some cases, they are lost to despair and all the kind samurai can do is ease their pain. There were many instances in which a quest would end in front of someone’s grave.

And there’s not a lot of variety in what you do in these quests. That’s not taking aim at Ghost Of Tsushima’s gameplay, rather the somber fact that the people on the island were so desperate. The Mongolian invasion leads to the rise of thievery so there are also bandits you need to worry about, not to mention the ronin (samurai who have abandoned their cause and joined up with the Mongols or gone rogue), which means all you do is fight and kill.

The soul-crushing scenery only adds to this air of misery. No matter where you go or how far along the island you travel, more often than not you will come across a few corpses hanging from trees, others having been burned to…