Hi everyone- My name is Darren Bridges and I’m the lead co-op designer for Ghost of Tsushima: Legends. To celebrate the inclusion of Legends as a bonus game in this month’s PlayStation Plus lineup, I wanted to give you all a chance to learn about our philosophy and development process.
For me, the journey began in 2016, when Nate Fox showed me an initial demo for Ghost of Tsushima and asked if I wanted to direct the design in co-op. I was so excited…and scared! I know it will be a challenge.
Our Playable Heroes Concept Art
I happily agreed to work on this, and my first goal was to make sure we had the flexibility to make decisions that resulted in a great co-op experience. The multiple selections that work in singleplayer don’t translate well to multiplayer content (and vice versa). After some touting efforts, we came up with something that really resonated: the co-op will be set in a world of supernatural stories told by an eccentric storyteller that Jin met on my travels. optimize the experience to be engaging, challenging, and fun for multiplayer, while still connecting themed with the world and characters of Ghost of Tsushima.
Have fun…with friends (or randos)!
Once we had established a general-purpose platform, we needed to ask ourselves – what really makes co-op so interesting? There are plenty of good answers out there, but here are the three main ones we focus on:
#1: Co-op is fun when you can play with other people
This seems obvious – if you don’t have other players, it’s not really co-op! But a lot of design decisions can make it easier or harder to play together. We wanted to streamline the experience and avoid decisions that split players or are difficult to combine. Here are some features that make it easier to play together:
Short guide: The training mission lasts about 10 minutes, after which you can immediately start matchmaking or playing with friends.
Wide availability: One of my early mantras during development was “The best feature we could add to co-op is all your friends.” We made the decision prior to release to make the mode available to everyone who owns Ghost of Tsushima instead of a paid DLC.
Matchmaking is centralized and in progress: We intentionally designed our difficulty structure and Quick Play system to minimize the total number of matchmaking pools. This makes it easy to play the type of content you care about while minimizing the amount of time you have to wait for a match. Alternatively, if other players disconnect during a session, you can re-enable matchmaking to fill their slots and move on.
Escalation, new challenges: As you start replaying missions with more difficulty, you’ll notice the introduction of new mechanics, rules, goals, and enemies. This keeps content fresh and surprising, and also increases the need to work together as you dive deeper into the experience.
An early prototype of the co-op puzzle
#2: It’s fun to be a hero to the audience
It feels great to open a perfect cash register or a head shot, but even better when you know that someone has watched you do it. Legends offers a lot of opportunities for players to become the “hero of the moment”.
Die from above: My personal favorite co-op hero moment is jumping off a high point in a skirmish and assassinating enemies right in front of my allies. It makes me happy every time I manage it, and it makes me laugh when others do it in front of me.
Last move: One of our designers pointed out how important sound is to Ultimates early on. No matter how far you are, you can hear another player’s battle cry when using their Ultimate… and when you’re lying on the ground and need help, it’s the best sound in the world gender.
Speaking of getting on the ground – the opposite of being a hero is being helped by your fellow heroes. I’m pretty good at Legends, but I still make silly mistakes. Every time I get injured in the first wave of Survival, I laugh to myself when someone kind comes to help me up. If only they knew they were helping the lead designer… they would probably shake their heads.
Four heroes stand ready
#3: It’s fun to work together
During the first co-op games, we’ll ask players two survey questions: “Do you feel you’re contributing to the team’s success” and “Do you see other players contributing to the team’s success?” of the team”? We don’t want Legends to feel like you’re playing a solo game with other people nearby. The essence of collaboration is to work together, and we want the game to invite players to do so wherever they are.
Easy communication: It’s easy to work together if you’re using the microphone with friends, but the Ping system allows players to coordinate actions even without voice communication.
Shared Success: Whenever possible, we design the game to accommodate player goals. Using “Kami’s Gift” in Survival will benefit everyone (and if combined, you can maximize value). When you hit the Healing Drum, it heals you, as well as anyone else nearby (and you can Ping it first to let others know you’re activating it).
Cursed Outfits items will grant monetary rewards to you, but also to others at the end of the match.
Enemy and Enemy Design: Many of the enemies and mechanics you’ll encounter in Legends are specifically designed to invite coordination. Enemies with soul link must be defeated at once, or they will come back to life. Enemies with Radio armor can be defeated faster if they are first damaged by the player with the matching Radio sword or a shot from the Archer. Even the encounter design plays a part – it feels great to sneak together two unsuspecting enemies and take them both down before they even know you’re there.
One of our earliest mockups of potential classes
Legendary Classroom
We’ve always planned on having a Hero Class to help foster collaboration, but the mechanical depth and aesthetic have evolved over time. Our first pass at Gear was like the single-player systems in Ghost. As this mode evolved, we decided to switch to a loot-based system, which is more in line with the replayable gameplay we’re building. We’ve also added class-specific tech trees, unique ultimates, and signature gear items. With each addition, their classes and playstyles become more distinct and engaging.
The original hero classes had no distinct visuals except for the mask they wore and the class emblem on their heads. Players can’t tell them apart, so we’ve made a big change to allot specific cosmetic sets to specific classes. We also then added class-specific voiceovers to help give them more personality.
Bizarre style
The visual style for Legends hasn’t been defined for a long time – most of it has been done in the past 9 months of development. Our first foray was concept art for the main antagonist, Iyo. We asked for some villain sketches, and the concept team came up with two very different but very cool variations – a pristine, elegant but unsettling human-sized woman, and a baby girl. Huge, large-sized monster in a scary mask. Both variants were so compelling that we decided to evolve them into dual-form raid bosses that eventually became the cornerstone of everything in Legends – from Story Quests to the Raid world, and even the main header image.
Concept art by Iyo, our villain
This model holds true for Raid in general – it’s a great investment, but the benefits go beyond the mission. From the start we believed that Legends needed a “North Star” for players to work towards – something that could justify and reward all the effort they put into building gear and kits. his skills. Raid will be the most challenging experience for players, but will also be the most cooperative experience. For Story and Survival missions, co-op is mostly optional, but in Raid we can completely put players’ lives in the hands of their allies. We described the Raid as “an escape room, but with enemies actively trying to kill you.”
The final boss battle came very late – so late that we feared we might have to cut or delay it. But we knew it was important to the game’s macro, so we redirected resources to make sure we could get it done and it was definitely worth the effort. Final Battle delivers the cooperative experience we’ve come to expect, while also allowing players to challenge Iyo directly.
Very early prototype of co-op platform
Cooperative spirit
We’ve been working on building a cooperative experience in the game – but it’s equally amazing to see the collaborative spirit that has grown in the community. Here are some notable points:
Free ride: A player who has completed the Survival Nightmare solo game (think for yourself), then activates the matchmaking feature to attract three random players once the mission is completed for them to receive an instant reward .
Useful allies: It’s common to see social media posts asking questions or asking for support and seeing lots of players happily giving answers and shepherding players through challenging content if needed.
Respect in silence: I personally played a lot of matches in 2-player Story mode against a random player, where we worked together throughout, completed missions, and ended up bowing our heads in respect. It’s a great feeling and exactly what we wanted to enable from the very beginning of the project.
Conclusion
It’s an incredible challenge, but also an incredible privilege to be able to build a Legend. The entire Sucker Punch team worked really hard to deliver on the vision, and we’re delighted that the content has now been extended to a wider audience. Thank you to everyone who played and everyone who tried this month. Maybe we’ll be in a game together soon!
