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SIE really couldn’t have timed it better to release Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut on the PC. With everybody up in arms about the black ‘samurai’ Yasuke being in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, here’s a similar game that does pretty much all of what Ubisoft’s series does.
Better in most aspects, even.
This is the third time I’m reviewing Ghost of Tsushima. I did the original PS4 version, rereviewed it for the Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut PS5 release and now doing it on the PC.
Why?
I LOVE the game’s aesthetics and every time it gets ported to a more powerful machine I just need to see it in action.
What’s more powerful than a kitted out PC then? Nothing, that’s what.
So does Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut disappoint or is it the best version of the game?
What is Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut?
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut is the enhanced version of SIE’s third open world action RPG based in ancient Japan. Developed by Sucker Punch (the people behind Sly Cooper and inFAMOUS series) and published by SIE.
This version of Ghost of Tsushima also includes the Legends multiplayer expansion.
Set during the Mongol invasion of Japan in the late 13th century, Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut stars Sakai Jin, a samurai fighting to defend his home island of Tsuhima from the Mongol invaders. As Lord Sakai, you’ll slowly retake the island, clearing out Mongol camps, liberating captured towns, while aiding the Japanese resistance against the Mongols.
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut is the exact same thing as it was on the Playstation, so read my reviews on them (particularly the PS5 version) if you want to know more.
New to the PC version are Japanese lip sync (which was sorely missed), support for widescreen monitors, DLSS, FSR and XeSS support and an unlocked framerate and visual customization options.
Lip synching was a major issue in the console version (I even highlighted it as a major flaw in the PS5 review), so I was kind of looking forward to see it improved on the PC. The good news is that it is kind of better.
Lips now emote somewhat more accurately to what’s being said in Japanese. It’s an improvement, but not as much as I’d like. Lip movement still look stiff and stilted and I think more work can definitely be done. Then again, maybe it’s the rigging? The game was made for the PS4, and perhaps the character models don’t support minute lip animations?
Unfortunately, this also drives home the fact that while the game is visually impressive, the facial animation system needs a lot more work.
Facial movements are robotic and while there are attempts to make them more lifelike, they still don’t measure up to the gold standard set by Netherrealm Studios’ Injustice 2 or Mortal Kombat 1. You want emotive, expressive faces? Take a look at those games.
Another of the big drawing points is widescreen support. Unfortunatly, I don’t have an ultra widescreen monitor (or multiple monitors) to test this. I’ve run it on a 4K TV (16:9) and a laptop with a 2560 x 1600 (16:10) display so there’s not a lot of difference between the two. A little extra real estate on the laptop, but nothing to write home about.
The final talking point (and the reason to get Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut on the PC) is of course the customizable settings.
I played with a desktop NVIDIA RTX 3080 ti and a notebook NVIDIA RTX 4080 GPU (2560 x 1600, on maxed out settings and both played brilliantly. There are weird slowdown issues (particularly when you’re aiming with the bow and you look around quickly) but those quickly resolved themselves and weren’t a major issue or hindrance to gameplay.
I did encounter a weird issue though on the desktop. I was bathing in one of the game’s hot springs and then just left the game idling there for about 45 minutes. When I came back and immediately fast travelled to another location, the frame rate tanked so badly that it was unplayable. Only a restart of the game from desktop fixed it.
I’m no developer, but I sense this might be a potential memory leaking issue here. I’ve also noticed that the game performance tends to degrade subtly over time. Areas that played smoothly at the start of the session might get weird frame rate drops when I return to it. Smoothly played areas would sometimes stutter a bit after a few hours of play. Sometimes, even the autosave would cause a hitch (as if the game’s loading an area) before the game continues on.
Mind you, this is all after hours-long play and the issues always resolve themselves after a restart. Again, I have the niggling feeling that that there might be memory leaking issues here. Will these issues get fixed?
The smart money is on yes. SIE’s track record on their PC ports is pretty good and every single one of their past games have gotten numerous performance patches after release to iron out issues. It’ll probably be the same for Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut.
It might not be the best it can be now, but you can bet it’ll get there given some time.
The Bottom Line.
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut brings one the Playstation 4’s best games to a platform that can finally do the game justice. The PS5 is powerful sure, but it’s nothing compared to hardcore PC gaming rigs.
On a machine capable of letting the game run wild, Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut is truly a breathtaking game. It looks breathtaking, plays brilliantly and comes with a superb soundtrack.
It simply can’t be stated enough how incredible the art direction is. Even normal scenes look spectacular and is worthy of a screenshot no matter where you are in the game. How many games can boast that?
Just riding around on your trusty steed, you can quickly go from a dark cloudy night by the shore, to a mist filled forest early in the morning, to wide open fields with gently swaying grass in the noon. It’s like a travelling montage, but it’s all done in real time in the game.
It also helps supremely that the Photo Mode in the game is full of cool features; time selection, filters, wind direction and strength control, particle effect and lots more! Even better, activating and deactivating the mode is almost instant. There’s almost no lag (unlike in some games with Photo Modes) as the game transitions between playing the game and taking pictures.
The only thing I miss is the ability to move the scene in real-time in micro increments.
Sometimes, the perfect look is just a teeny millisecond off and being able to move the game a bit forward to get that perfect shot (without cancelling Photo Mode) would’ve been great!
Unfortunately, the port to the PC stumbles a bit out of the gate. There are definite technical issues that can detract from your enjoyment of the game. The hitching, the framerate drops, the stuttering…minor issues they may be, but they are there.
So then the question go from should you buy Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut to should you buy Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut now?
My answer is simple really.
Have you played Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut on the PS5 and can wait to replay the game? Then wait a bit and let SIE iron out the kinks.
Haven’t played the game before? Jump in immediately. The issues I mentioned are minor and if you can bear with them (and restart the game once in a while), then you’re in for a landmark Playstation 4 title that no gamer should miss.
TLDR:
The best version of Ghost of Tsushima if you have the hardware to run it…but it comes with a few new technical issues.
The Good:
- Excellent gameplay
- Superb visuals
- Great story
The Bad:
- Facial animations.
- Some stuttering issues appear after prolonged play.
- Nothing new if you’ve played the PS5 version.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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