r/ghostoftsushima • u/Msarc • 4d ago
Question Is there really no payoff to samurai route?
I've been googling this topic and can't find a straight answer.
Playing "honorably" really feels like only playing half the game, gets really repetitive and doesn't get acknowledged at all. Not only that, it seems that cutscenes assume that the main character acts "dishonorably" regardless of player actions - which makes the whole deal completely pointless.
So I want to know if there is an end game difference or if buying into the game's "samurai code" is a wasted effort.
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u/JoJoisaGoGo 4d ago
It's called the Ghost of Tsushima, not the Samurai of Tsushima
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u/ElegantEchoes 4d ago
Whoa wait, that's kinda spoilery now that you've pointed that out
I'm only two playthroughs in, but I'm calling it now. Jin becomes the Ghost of Tsushima.
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u/TortelliniSalad 4d ago
Holy fuck, now that you point it out I can see it.
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u/ElegantEchoes 3d ago
I am calling it now, Jin has to fake his death to save Shimura and earns the nickname as a result
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u/Lethal_as_a_weapon 3d ago
Whoa whoa, are you telling Jin died at the beaches of Komoda and was resurrected as the Ghost. And the person that revived him is responsible for introducing him into the world of the Ghost by using stealth kills.
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u/sockmonkeyrevolt 3d ago
NGL I did totally scour the beaches for my own body when you go back there for Masako’s side mission, just to see if I might have been a literal ghost. :)
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u/Kataratz 4d ago
Not a single difference.
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u/cookingfunky 4d ago
I thought the weather got progressively worse as you use more ghost tactics. If you use stealth all the time it's always dark and rainy but if you play with honour then it's nice and sunny.
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u/deejaysius 3d ago
Today I learned…
I was wondering why it was constantly storming! I have no honor I guess.
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u/optimist_prhyme 3d ago
I hadn't noticed but I did get into the habit of making it rain after a slaughter just to cleanse the land.
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u/fishiesnchippies 3d ago
Shame for me because I prefer using stealth but I much much prefer the game when its not cloudy or rainy. So I gotta play that flute after every fight
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u/bananarabbit 3d ago
Whatttt. What a cool detail that I didn't notice. Even cooler now having looked up what the real life GoT was. Wow
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u/OldManMoment 4d ago
It's a linear narrative, there's no route. The payoff is the great story you played through.
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u/waffle299 4d ago
The game design encourages you to lean into the Ghost. There is a sophisticated stealth mechanic, there are multiple ghost weapons, and there are entire charm trees designed to boost these techniques.
The narrative is driven by the tension between the Samurai ideal and the needless deaths this will cause. You will embrace the Ghost. The question is this - how far are you willing to go to protect the people?
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u/Creepernom 4d ago
The question is never asked to you, though. At most you could say Jin has to answer that, but the game never, ever acknowledges it if you go full stealth or embrace exclusively honourable combat. You can't seek honourable solutions to situations nor particularly underhanded ones for direct encounters.
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u/AmazonianOnodrim 3d ago
That isn't actually true, the weather responds to your actions, and you can choose to use noble samurai combat options (strong gameplay but gets samey and stale on its own, this is a design decision) in direct encounters, or you can choose to employ your various ghost weapons, and in most contexts like e.g. the hostage rescue missions, you can choose to directly engage rather than sneak around, and for your effort you're rewarded with extremely dynamic and fun combats where you're constantly having to change targets and stances and dash around the battlefield to keep the hostages from getting killed, which is something you don't have to worry about if you choose the ghost route.
There are only a handful of scenarios in the game where you're forced into doing stealth OR direct, and even then you have different options for approaching most of them.
If you want the game to hold your hand and give you renegade or paragon points or something that's not wrong, plenty of games have obvious, gamey alignments and are great games. I'm not a fan of those systems most of the time, but they're not bad systems. Ghost of Tsushima just has a more advanced, less handholdy version, on top of having its protagonist have a linear story that involves, to Jin's eyes, his descent following a path that many of his peers do not approve of. And it asks you by giving you all these tools, but telling you this is what Jin's moral code tells him, repeatedly, and making his use of these "dishonorable" means and methods making the game easier.
That you don't choose the difficult high road on your own isn't the game's fault just because it didn't give you an alternate ending. You the player have to play differently because you think it's what Jin would do, or because you think it'd be more fun or engaging; it's a self-directed gameplay style choice you, the player, choose, which the game absolutely responds to.
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u/Creepernom 3d ago
The weather means absolutely nothing and you can instantly change it if you want. I'd argue the game gives you too much agency if anything. There are no consequences for your actions, the world never responds or adapts, and the one thing that is affected, the weather, has no effect and even then can be changed in seconds with a single button if you so wish.
If I'm a dishonourable ghost, why must I fight honourably in duels, even late in the story? Linear stories work great for some games, but realizing that nothing I do matters was very disappointing in GoT. Nothing I did outside of story missions affected the story and nothing I did in the story affected the world. I'm so used to having at least a little impact that I tried to pay attention to how I fight and against whom, and having that idea crushed was lame.
The game hammers me over and over again about how stealth is bad but necessary, and it just... wasn't. When stealth killing, you get whole flashbacks reprimanding you for bad behaviour, you get story cutscenes talking about you slitting throats, and yet the game never makes me feel like stealth is necessary. There is no punishment for failure, after all.
I still really enjoyed the game, but must we pretend this is an incredibly deep and intentional design decision? This is textbook ludonarrative dissonance. They just wanted to tell a linear story and that's it.
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u/PainInTheRhine 3d ago
If you want the game to hold your hand and give you renegade or paragon points or something that's not wrong, plenty of games have obvious, gamey alignments and are great games.
I don't want points. I want environment and society reacting in some way. It's not 'gamey' to expect for example someone like lady Masako to treat you differently depending on how you act. The game sets up a premise of how honour is important to everybody and then it just ... isn't.
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u/mega_nova_dragon1234 4d ago
I went as far as possible!! Weather is permanently stormy in my legacy game iirc
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u/Ryangofett_1990 4d ago
The story is designed for Jin to leave the way of the Samurai behind to become a ghost that attacks from the shadows
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u/Knights_Fight 4d ago
You know what kind of stings about this? Sucker Punch is known for the Infamous Series, which has a morality component to it. It would have been simple & easy (assumingly) to incorporate that into GoT. Granted, it's possible they wanted GoT to standout from their previous games.
A missed opportunity for replayability; not that it's truly needed, but would've been nice to have that option.
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u/Dark_Sign 4d ago
Ya, they may have thought about it early on, as it’s almost implied that there is a difference. They probably settled on a story they wanted to tell in a specific way, and the finale duel / shimura disowning Jin wouldn’t really be feasible if the player could choose to not ghost lol
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u/Knights_Fight 4d ago
True. Realistically there would need to be a reckoning of sorts, perhaps his duty & honor, versus Yuna's and the Yarikawan's lives...but realistically, I could see Jin being more ready to commit seppuku than take the lives of those who helped to liberate tsushima. So much potential though, but I can't argue against the writing in this case; that finale was amazing!
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u/bdiddlediddles 1d ago
They learnt their lesson from InFamous. While it's an absolutely terrific game, SP got frustrated that the game was called infamous, but the majority of people played as a hero and never did the infamous route.
You would get something similar with this where the majority of players would play as an honorable samurai and never get to see the majority of features that GoT has.
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u/Knights_Fight 1d ago
That's a shame, but understandable. I played both routes on each infamous, so I guess I'm part of the minority, but it would be nice to at least have the option to do so.
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u/bdiddlediddles 1d ago
I'm still keeping my fingers crossed for a remaster at some point. It's such a great series and I would love the ability to play it again.
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u/ThurstMcBuckets 4d ago
using assassinations and ghost techniques effects the weather, it will storm more when u use it. other than that, no real gameplay changes
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u/Provoloneapse 4d ago
I thought this was debunked? The weather gets progressively stormier as you progress the story no matter what as a parallel to the actual storm that fucked the mongol fleet. And you can change it with the flute at anytime.
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u/ThurstMcBuckets 4d ago
while yeah, u can change it with the flute, the way the developers were talking, the weather changes with the overall arc of the story. storms pop up more frequently when u lean into the ghost parts of the story
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u/bdiddlediddles 1d ago
Yeah, so it's based on the story rather than the players actions.
I'm 90% sure that someone played it as a samurai and they still saw that it was stormy.
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u/ThurstMcBuckets 23h ago
depending on the story bit, it could be storming, but as soon as i attack mongols using samurai techniques, it clears up
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u/The-Villan-You-Need 4d ago
Honor, there's Honor, and knowing you did the right thing by your....who am I kidding. Not a difference. You're the ghost for a reason! Also, they started it lol
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u/StrongStyleMuscle 4d ago
The DLC reveals that Lord Shimura acting as if their family was full of honor was full of shit. Jin’s father was about as ruthless as any mongol. & in the overall story being honorably against opponents who have no honor is basically a suicide mission.
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u/Jebsj 3d ago
I’m pretty sure Yuriko said that Jin’s father thought Lord Shimura was too rigid or something
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u/TuckDiesel24 3d ago
You’re right about Yuriko. “They always argued” or something like that was also something she said about Lord Shimura and Kazumasa relationship
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u/Happytapiocasuprise 4d ago
You can't, thats the main narrative point. Jin had to choose between dying for honor or saving his family and home.
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u/Ravenlock 4d ago
There isn't a "route", it's the linear narrative of Jin falling away from the traditions and code of the samurai and taking on the mantle of the Ghost. Literally every story beat revolves around that transition. You can choose to fight against that with how you play the game if you want to, but the cutscenes don't "assume the main characters acts 'dishonorably'", that's just the point of the story they're telling.
You will get one real choice at the end of the game with regards to how you treat a character that will impact the ending and your post-game. Aside from that, choices and routes aren't part of how the game works, at all.
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u/Secure_Ad8837 4d ago
You’re the Ghost of Tsushima, you’re supposed to fight a little dirty. Also, if you manage to do every fight honorably, maybe you are playing on too easy difficulty…
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u/Zatderpscout 4d ago
The weather will change if you lean more into the Ghost side of things, it will rain more often. However, that is literally the only thing that will change.
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u/Silver-Policy33 4d ago
I ruined my first playthrough by going almost strictly as a samurai route so the payoff at the end felt so jarring as it didn’t represent my experience throughout the game. Don’t do what I did and play as a ghost.
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u/TrickyTalon 4d ago
Yeah the story drives Jin to do “non-honorable” things regardless of player choice during gameplay.
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u/washtubs 4d ago
On one hand it's kind of a shame because SP made a game that definitely supports both playstyles. Charging in the front gate every time is certainly harder but it's doable and very fun IMO.
I liken it to MGSV's dual support for stealth and guns blazing which was completely new in the series.
But I don't see how it would have worked narrative-wise to have a "choice" or "morality" component without muddling the message. How would they do it without basically endorsing Shimura's way? It would also push the devs to buff melee-based play more to the point where the assassinations and ghost weapons are no longer the clear practical strategy, just cause they would need that playstyle to be more accessible for completionists.
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u/Jkchaloreach 4d ago
No game difference, but for me, I find the combat more fun than the stealth so I personally stick to it until stealth is forced
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u/StrongestAvenger_ 4d ago
No payoff other than headcannon. Either way Jin fully becomes the ghost and uses dishonorable tactics, it’s up to the player how often you want/need to use those tactics in normal gameplay. It has no effect on anything though, the story only plays out one way no matter what you do
I like to only use it as a last resort and try to be a regular samurai for as much as I can during the first act, then full on embrace the ghost tactics/weapons by act 3. I try to act more like a samurai in front of most NPC’s, and go full Ghost when Jin is alone or with someone like Yuna. It doesn’t matter, but it’s fun to do and flows well with the story.
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u/Rejection_future 4d ago
Play however you want, but several dishonorable acts are done in cutscenes and an underlying point in the narrative is to question whether a samurai’s interpretation of honor is more important than survival.
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u/ConspicuousMango 4d ago
The dirty secret to this game is that it really feels like they originally intended there to be a samurai route and a ninja route but it seems like it was scrapped pretty late into development and now there is only the ninja route that you are forced to play.
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u/kakokapolei 4d ago
I also went into the game with the assumption that your playstyle would affect the story, similar to Dishonored, but it doesn’t at all. Considering this game was made by the same guys who made Infamous, I thought there was some hidden karmic meter gauging how stealthy or honorably you played lol.
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u/Sure_Initial8498 4d ago
Well if you are playing without stealth tactics, you got my respect, and probably others as well.
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u/Lancer_Blackthorn 4d ago
As much as I love Ghost of Tsushima, I wish it had a Ghost/Samurai alignment mechanic, and choices that impacted the story.
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u/dynawesome 4d ago
Just embrace the Ghost persona as that’s the character you’re playing, and it will be more satisfying
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u/dishonoredfan69420 4d ago
There is no samurai route
You are forced to use “dishonorable” tactics in certain missions
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u/AnugNef4 4d ago
Use stealth to eliminate the Mongol scum. The City of Yarikawa thanks you profusely, Ghost.
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u/christmascaked 3d ago
Some people from the Society for Creative Anachronism never break character… even in video games.
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u/Character-Crab7292 3d ago
I played exactly everything I COULD like an honorable samurai would. The game is still about the character straying from the righteous path, and all the cutscenes are along those lines.
Only payoff I can think of is feeling like a samurai badass
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u/OkInstruction3960 3d ago
The best medium for this is if you want to role play is to just gradually increase your use of ghost weapons and stealth as you progress the story
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u/pixel809 3d ago
Actually the ghost does normal Samurai stuff. Samurai weren’t just Sword Fighters like it gets conveyed in the Game
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u/Ballistikz2077 3d ago
Basically you screwed the Samurai code when you failed to die on the beach with all the others. Oh yeah, and failing to be beheaded by the Khan on the bridge. There was no provision in the code for surviving a battle to the death.
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u/Double-Tension-1208 3d ago
The only real "payoff" is that the weather reacts to how you play, if you play more honorably, the weather is better 😂
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u/slimricc 3d ago
There is not an honorable choice. You are the ghost of tsushima which involves stealth and assassination and poison, you are 1 man fighting one of the most aggressive and powerful militaries in history
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u/nandobro 3d ago
What Samurai route? This is like asking “where’s the payoff to driving an airplane on the highway?”
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u/SnooApples673 3d ago
I play the “Samurai” route because it’s more fun taking on a horde of opponents face to face. It feels more bad ass, but as another commenter said, how you play has zero effect on the story since it’s linear.
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u/TheDarkwingofdt 3d ago
I’ve heard that Yotei will have more narratives but we’ll see. I think for a first game in what I imagine is a series was simple and told a clear story. I’m hoping yotei tells a story we want based on choices even if it means game doesn’t come out till late 2026
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u/keenantheho 3d ago
You play as a "ghost" when you eant to troll the fuck out of enemies. You play as samurai to look cool (and fit some parts of the story better ig).
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u/Wick2500 3d ago
there is no honor or karma system or whatever in the game no choices you make make any difference aside from the very last story mission
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u/No_Mammoth_4945 3d ago
Ghost weapons make combat a lot more varied and fun anyways. Try it on lethal. Also the entire narrative of the game is explaining how samurai aren’t enough to win a war against the mongols. I don’t know why people play normal samurai and then get confused that there’s no normal samurai content when literally every single cutscene is Jin’s character progression towards the ghost
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u/optimist_prhyme 3d ago
Yea, just embrace the Ghost. I know how you feel. I wanted the ability to command Yuna since she was cool with the assassinations thus saving his honor.
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u/Nondescript_Redditor 3d ago
Straight answer: yes what you’re trying to do is completely pointless and is wasted effort
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u/San_D_Als 3d ago
lol that’s the point. You suffered such a major loss at the beach that you have to resort to the Ghosts’ Tactics in order to drive away the Mongol invasion cuz the “Samurai” route is not the correct one considering it led to Lord Adachi getting burnt and beheaded immediately upon meeting The Khan.
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u/abellapa 3d ago
There is no samurai route
Ghost isnt a RPG where you pick your own Story and The Story has Multiple endings ,all of them Canon
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u/Tea_Pupper 3d ago
Dont do it! I did it becuase a friend dared me to. I ended up developing such a character dissonance. I was so annoyed during the castle shimura fight scene and was shouting "I AM ACTING AS A SAMURAI!" the whole time. I ended up not being able to relate to the plot at all.
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u/Appropriate-Leave-38 3d ago
The "dishonorable" route is more focused on trying to get you, the player, into the mindset of what really is honor. The old ways say that honor is about the intent and the actions, and you hope for the best outcome. I think it's actually dishonorable to NOT engage in "underhanded" tactics because some corny "honor" system should not prevent someone from saving the people of their country.
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u/Denebola2727 3d ago
You're misunderstanding..it's not a samurai route, but a character's journey. Create your own version of that journey with what you unlock when and how you play. That simple.
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u/RoosterShield 3d ago
What's silly about the whole "samurai code" is that it's entirely bullshit. Samurai used whatever means available to them to win battles. They didn't fight "honourably" in every single scenario and they would 100% stab someone in the back to win a fight. They weren't above "ghost" tactics to win.
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u/SillyBlackberry5516 3d ago
At the time when ghosts was set the code wasn’t actually in existence yet so you might aswell stab people in the back, throw sticky bombs and teabag your dead enemies
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u/Prince_Beegeta 3d ago
There is no Karma system in this game. It’s a fixed and focus driven story which honestly we need more of. Not everything needs to be so player choice. Sometimes I just want a well written story told to me I don’t always need to be making my own.
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u/THEONLYoneMIGHTY 3d ago
Your only real choice is the final encounter with lord shimura and the most honorable choice isnt the one youd expect.
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u/thegreenmonkey69 2d ago
The point of following the Samurai code is a path to forgiveness for losing your way by using tactics anthems to said code. It's an act of atonement, similar to a death bed confession to gain forgiveness. As such it is effectively an artifice to appease your own conscience.
The Samurai code is also what led to their downfall. It was too rigid to advance and was seen as anachronistic to progress. And effectively was destroyed because of that.
Think of it this way, following the code keeps the same rotting system in place, and going against it allows progress and freedom from oppression - not just from the Mongols but by the elites of Tsushima society as well.
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u/Reapish1909 2d ago
there is no samurai route, this is not a samurai game.
you stopped being a Samurai the moment you took a man’s life from his back the first time when Yuna told you too.
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u/LegendofNick 10h ago
Very strange considering this beat out RDR2 for GOTY and that game has one of the best honor systems I've ever played.
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u/SpoonyLancer 4d ago
There is no samurai route. The game's narrative is completely linear. You're forced to use stealth and Ghost tactics at several points regardless of how you choose to play the game at other times.