Sucker Punch Productions knocked it out of the park with Ghost of Tsushima, with the Japanese-inspired title quickly becoming one of the fastest selling PS4 exclusives in the console’s history. However, not settling with resting on those laurels, the generally action RPG-oriented developer has also announced a multiplayer expansion coming to the game this fall.
Promising to be an expansive multiplayer experience, the Legends update planned for Ghost of Tsushima is likely to be a hit (based on the popularity of the SP) as long as it can take inspiration from similar titles and make a rewarding, multilayered combat puzzle for players to solve together. One of these inspirations that may be the best for Sucker Punch to focus on when it comes to implementing the fast paced action from the base game into an intense co-operative experience is Bungie’s Destiny series and its incredible raids.
While some details about Ghost of Tsushima: Legends have been released and teased, players still don’t quite know exactly what to expect from the expansion when it lands. From what little information that Sucker Punch has let loose, it can be determined that there will be at least three new co-operative game modes that tasks players with fighting across the island of Tsushima, one of which will be a raid. Considering the massive space and sectioned off castles that the game already has to work with, it would definitely be possible to throw multiple encounters into each mode that players need to run in order to complete an activity.
This is similar to how Destiny‘s highest-level activities function, with multiple encounters following a central theme and leading up to a series of usually incredible raid bosses, like Riven. These become the meat of each raid, and following a similar example where players can jump into the activity to tackle each encounter with saved checkpoints can enhance the experience of Legends. It’s a fairly obvious idea for raid design, but with the Ghost of Tsushima expansion still so up in the air, it’s difficult to know what to expect from the MP mechanics.
The pace of raid encounters comes down to a number of things, often requiring players to maintain the pace on their own in order to successfully survive each fight. This pacing, often requiring precise communication between players, is what tends to get in the way of attempting to integrate matchmaking in Destiny‘s raids due to the specific roles everyone involved has to play. However, when performed correctly, it’s exactly this synergy between teammates that makes diving into activities like Last Wish or Garden of Salvation so engaging beyond the loot available within.
From the way Sucker Punch describes the upcoming multiplayer expansion, it will likely have matchmaking and won’t require the same call-outs and precise synergy in order to complete each encounter. Taking that pacing into Ghost of Tsushima together with keeping each player individually informed on their roles in Legends‘ encounters can still fit well into a more flexible, pick-up-and-play style. It all depends on what Sucker Punch is really looking to accomplish with this multiplayer experience, especially when it comes to how teams are intended to be formed online and how important communication will be.
One of the base tenants of Destiny‘s raids is the way that they takes the core mechanics of the game and pushes them to their limits in ways that no other encounter can. This goes far beyond how players shoot or the different way characters can jump or throw down barriers and pools of empowering or healing light at their feet. It’s small things as simple as shooting sprites in the distance like oracles in Destiny‘s Vault of Glass, all while combining these mechanics with puzzles that will punish players by burdening them with debuffs or completely wiping the team.
In the case of Ghost of Tsushima, these same mechanics to lean into could extend from scaling castle walls and mountainsides with the grappling hook all the way to securing documents or artifacts from enemy camps. Looking at the “play your way” mentality and incentivizing specific play styles with different roles that are given different tasks to fulfill would be the perfect way to utilize each individual mechanic and work them into encounters. Given everything we know about Legends, this is the case to a degree with some of the classes as Sucker Punch has shown them so far, although how well these mechanics will be implemented is what can make or break the expansion.
One aspect of game design that many fans don’t think about is the way that meta appears among a community and quickly becomes one of the most difficult tasks available to developers. Thanks in part to the fact that while features and puzzles can be built into a game with intent, meta is often discovered as a result of how those features interlock with themselves as well as unintentional tech uncovered by players. This meta is what quickly makes Destiny‘s classes and subclasses such an integral part of any raid, as different class specific abilities like a Warlock’s Radiance or a Hunter’s Void Bow can turn the tides of certain fights.
What this means for Sucker Punch, however, is that in order to deliver what fans want from Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, some testing is going to be required to see if the meta utilizes each class properly. In the same way that having Titans available to drop a shield at the final platform when fighting Callus in Destiny 2‘s Leviathan raid, the Assassins, Ronin, and Hunters need to have something that makes each one stand out and be too useful to leave behind. Of course, there are exceptions as the rules are bent by the skills and synergy of players and clans who can work against the meta and still come out on top, but if each class is designed to be perfectly relevant, then it is possible to make proper team composition feel more rewarding.
Ghost of Tsushima is available now for PS4. Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.
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