Sadly, non-PlayStation players did not defeat the Mongol invasion of Japan by themselves. They never traded their honor for victory; neither became a shadow nor the real typhoon that sank Kublai Khan’s fleet in 1281 A.C. And, for those who did, it all ended after about 25 hours, and you may want more. Regardless of what player type you are, we’re listing the best Games like Ghost of Tsushima.
Games Like Ghost Of Tsushima
Ghost of Tsushima is a multi-award-winning game and one of the all-time PS4 best-sellers. The success, we believe, is due to how the developers refined the open-world action-adventure mechanic with cinematic storytelling. Either way, finding games like the samurai adventure requires us to understand the aspects of the title. Ghost of Tsushima fans would like games featuring a mix of the following elements:
Genre: Ghost of Tsushima is an action-adventure open-world game. Open-world: The open-world is an island. The geography is available to you, but you have to explore the areas to reveal important locations and secrets.Traveling: Instead of markers and waypoints, you follow the “wind” as it blows towards objectives and points of interest. You can watch the grass, falling leaves, and cherry blossoms for clues.Aesthetics: The setting is Japan’s Kamakura era (1185–1392). Aesthetics have cultural references of the era like Buddhism and the samurai way. Storytelling: The game follows an alternate story revolving around Mogol’s invasion of Japan. Cinematic Value: The title uses plenty of cinematic cuts and heavy character arcs to progress the story.Cinematic Influence: Game directors influenced Akira Kurosawa’s movies for their aesthetics, characters, and cinematics. Choices: Along the journey, you’ll face choices valuing honor, bushido code, or victory at all cost. Ultimately, your choices lead to two distinct endings.Combat: Combat relies on parries, dodges, and special attacks. It’s much easier than most souls-like games, though.Character Progression: Players level up to unlock offensive and defensive moves across various skill trees.Stances: Jin unlocks “Sword Stances” across the story or defeats enemy bosses. These deliver new movement sets.Counters: You can switch between stances as you fight to defeat different weapon and armor types. Weapons: Various Japanese weapons are available, like a katana or a wakizashi. You can also use stealth to take down enemies or sneak.Gear: You can also find and customize gear as you play. It’s not a big part of the game, but it can improve the character. Questing: As an open-world game, there’re both main quests and secondary quests. Co-op: Lastly, the game has a multiplayer feature. It’s a 2/4-player co-op that uses a class system and unique instances.
Overall, Ghost of Tsushima is a smooth open-world game. It doesn’t force gamers with clutter on the map, and it doesn’t take too long to get the story going. Sucker Punch’s title excels at all of its categories, so we can only search for stellar action-adventure games.
Games Like Ghost Of Tsushima
Elden Ring
Elden Ring is the latest and perhaps greatest game by FromSoftware. Dark Souls and Sekiro creators joined author George R.R. Martin to create a new world and deliver their first open-world RPG title. The game wraps everything the developers have learned and tried across its catalog. It packs challenging Dark Souls-like combat, a complex counter system like Sekiro, and deep RPG progression like on Demon’s Souls. You play in the Lands Between after the destruction of the Elden Ring. It’s a scattered, uneven land with no markers or pointers. The geography is available to you, but you need to explore the world and figure out what to do to become the Elden Lord. Elden ring is an open-world action RPG from a third-person perspective. Gameplay focuses on souls-like combat, exploration, a rich magic system, and deep character progression. You can freely explore dungeons, catacombs, castles, fortresses, and more across the game’s six main areas. The combat is challenging and relies on character builds, including stats, skills, and gear. The formula allows you to bathe the enchanting world the game presents and uncover the rich lore and story George Martin crafted.
Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition
Horizon Zero Dawn is PlayStation 4’s all-time best-seller. It has over 20 million copies sold, enough reasons to give it a try now that it’s also for PC. It’s an open-world action-adventure Western RPG with all of the genre elements, though, which means a more classical approach to map design. Even so, the game excels at combat and traversal, the two high points of the franchise. For combat, you use bows, grenades, and other tribal tools. You hunt mechanical monsters and animals, and each one has different behaviors, skills, and weaknesses. When they are down, you take their resources to craft more ammo, the way the game opens a constant loop of hunting for supplies. The traversal relies on parkour. You jump, climb, crawl, and run across a vast open-world using a third-person perspective. You can explore almost anything, and there’s combat and loot almost everywhere. Loot relies on armor pieces, crafting resources like metal shards, healing herbs, and items you can sell for shards. Lastly, the character progression and the map are more classical. You earn levels to unlock skills on various trees, and you explore the multiple markers of the map to complete quests. Even so, it works perfectly well with the rest of the elements.
Horizon Forbidden West
Forbidden West is Zero Dawn’s sequel. It continues the open-world action-RPG adventure formula and continues Aloy’s story. However, it refines the visuals, the combat, enemy AI, and traversal mechanics. In the first game, Aloy researches the origin of the mechanical monsters and her own roots. The new plot sets Aloy, a member of the Nora tribe, traveling to the Forbidden West to research a new threat. The gameplay mechanics are similar, but the game introduces new traversal mechanics to improve the parkour. For example, Aloy has a glider and a hook (like Jin Sakai). She can also dive underwater and make new arrow types to defeat new enemies. Another significant element is making small decisions during conversations. These lead to minor consequences, like getting AI companions or different reactions from NPCs. Moreover, the game leads to various endings depending on your actions. Overall, Forbidden West feels like a small step-up from Horizon. Even so, it’s a great choice for fans of the genre. Moreover, combat is addictive, challenging, and requires player skill.
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Breath of the Wild delivers absolute freedom. Its open world is free of markers, pointers, and even quests. Moreover, you’re free to explore anywhere if you have enough stamina. Exploration and combat depend on stamina. You can dodge, parry, block, and attack. You can also climb, run, jump and glide. It means exploring the top of a mountain or defeating a powerful mob mostly depends on your stamina bar. That said, the game starts with a single quest: Defeat Ganondorf. Speed-runners found a way to do it in five minutes before the villain has a chance to put his pants on. You, though, would probably take hundreds of hours to explore a gorgeous-looking Hyrule and find its many secrets. More importantly, the game has various AI systems making the experience immersive. It has a day and night cycle, weather conditions, and a physics engine determining how any two elements interact with each other. Lastly, character progression is challenging but available. You can find items to improve HP and stamina, find better gear, find new tools, or gather resources from enemies and nature for cooking and crafting recipes.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Sekiro, by FromSoftware, is an action-adventure game with RPG elements and superb Souls-like combat. It even has a “Souls” system indicating the value you gain for each Death & Rebirth cycle. As Ghost of Tsushima, the charm comes from playing as a samurai. You slash, block, parry, dodge, and use shinobi tools to defeat the enemies. However, the combat is severely more challenging, and it revolves around breaking enemies’ guards (postures) to deal powerful blows. It’s not an open-world game, though. Instead, you go through a series of linear levels by sneaking or defeating enemies. The maps are gorgeous and take inspiration from Japan’s Sengoku period. In addition to its great sights and towers, each map has several mini-bosses and bosses that will test your patience. The character progression is limited and tough, and you lose XP progress on death. Still, you unlock skills on various trees, learn new combat moves, and find new tools. There’s not much combat customization, though. Instead, you’d have to master its posture system to defeat increasingly challenging levels. Lastly, the plot takes inspiration from 17th Century Japan, when warlords from the Ashina clan took the power of the Ashina land. You play as “Wolf,” alone shinobi seeking revenge against the clan that attacked his lord.
The Last of Us
If you’re looking for cinematic value, The Last of Us is your best pick. It takes elements from survival horror and zombie movies and shows to deliver a unique father & daughter story revolving around greater vs. self-preservation. A fungus virus ravaged across the United States, turning millions of citizens into monsters, and bringing civilization to ruins. You play as Joel, who finds Ellie, a young girl, and leads her to a laboratory where scientists can produce a cure. The journey is linear, full of cinematics, secondary characters, and heavy character arcs. Along the journey, you play in third-person and use scarce ammo, weapons, and tools to defeat “zombie”-like monsters and humans. Character progression relies on finding items that unlock skills. You can also upgrade weapons with limited parts and generally become a better player. Gameplay is tough, though, as resources are limited, and areas are often full of enemies. The Last of Us has a sequel, Part II. However, we prefer recommending the original title, as it has a unique story that could only happen in its universe. The sequel feels a downgrade, story-wise, although the gameplay feels better.
God of War
2018’s God of War presented a new storyline that feels like a soft reboot, making it a perfect time for newcomers to enter the saga. Perhaps for that reason, it became the first in the series to debut for PC as well. God of War is an action-RPG game with arcade-type combat, semi-open maps, and linear progress. You play as Kratos, the God of War, traveling alongside his son, Atreus, to scatter Atreus’ mother’s ashes. The journey takes Kratos in conflict with members of the Norsen mythology. As in previous games in the saga, the setting opens up brutal combat relying on combos, complex offensive abilities, skills, and magical weapons. As another PlayStation IP, it feels akin to Ghost of Tsushima. It has a great focus on storytelling, character arcs, voice-acting, and motion animation. Lastly, character progress relies on earning skill points, upgrading your gear, and finding “runes.” Also, there’re traders in the world and a crafting system for the first time in the saga.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Ghost of Tsushima and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also share similarities. The last game, though, is one of the greatest titles of the previous console generations. It’s also one of the greatest open-world action-RPGs games of all time. Like Sucker Punch’s game, you play across vast lands, rich worlds, gorgeous sights, and marvelous nature. There’s also a big city, castles, dungeons, mountains, and a sea to explore. Similarly, the open world has various vast areas you unlock and visit via fast travel. Each area has a main quest to complete, plus tons of stellar side-content to explore. And as an RPG, you can do so in any order and make story-altering decisions. You, as Geralt, are a “mercenary” that trades monster heads for coins. Your main mission, though, is finding City, your surrogate daughter. She’s fleeing from ancient evil, magical elves posing a dangerous threat to the world. The story is greatly cinematic, slow-paced, and character-driven. Lastly, combat relies on classical third-person swordplay, but you also have magic, grenades, and a crossbow. Moreover, you level up to unlock skills, find, buy or craft new gear, and build your character in multiple ways.
Marvel’s Spider-Man
Marvel’s Spider-Man uses a similar formula to Ghost of Tsushima. It’s also an action-adventure open-world game with RPG features and cinematic storytelling. You play as Spiderman, which allows you to swing around the city and take down enemies with acrobatic and fast-paced combat. Moreover, you level up to unlock skills on various trees and earn better gadgets and tools. Story-wise, the title captures the essence of comics Peter Parker but adds action set-pieces akin to MCU movies. The plot is fun but also dramatic and emotional. It showcases how Peter Parker can never be happy or balanced as long as he’s Spider-Man. That said, you have a lot of freedom to explore the map and progress the story. The map is full of markers and side content, but extra activities are mostly about collecting stuff and clearing bandits. Overall, Marvel’s Spider-Man is an excellent open-world action game. It’s also one of PlayStation’s best-sellers and a compelling reason to buy a PS4 or a PS5 if you don’t have one.
Batman: Arkham Knight
The latest entry of the Arkham Knight game series shares various elements with Ghost of Tsushima. In particular, Arkham Knight is an open-world action-adventure RPG with similar arcade-like combat. The feeling is familiar. Your character is constantly surrounded, and you can methodically defeat your enemies. Gameplay is about chaining combos and using your tools and gadgets with strategy. Moreover, Batman’s fighting style relies on martial arts and sharp tools. Even though you swap swords for fists, the action gameplay feels equally fun. Arkham Knight also has multipart side quests that reveal lore information and take you exploring new areas. But then, the main quests feel cinematic, akin to a movie adaptation of the masked detective. Lastly, character progression relies on leveling up to unlock skills, gears, and tools. Also, along the journey, you’ll get help from other characters in the Batman-verse like Catwoman, Nightwing, and Robin.
Dishonored 2
After slicing through Ghost of Tsushima, you may want to keep slashing enemies in Dishonored 2. It has similarly rich environments, fast-paced combat, and a mix of supernatural abilities and lore to fill the hole. You play as either Corvo Attano or Emily Kaldwin, daughter of Dunwall’s empress. After a coup d’etat, you pick one of the two characters to bring order to the city. That includes dealing with the corrupt leaders, defeating the villain, and saving the character you didn’t pick. Dishonored 2 is a first-person action-adventure game. You can use steals, tools, swords, or supernatural abilities to sneak by or defeat enemies. Then, you play on a series of semi-open levels where you need to complete a specific task to finish. Stealth is one of the game’s main mechanics, like Ghost of Tsushima, and so are parries, dodges, and attacks. In addition, you have abilities like teleportation, mind-control, or shapeshifting into a rat to sneak into locations. And, naturally, you can upgrade your character by finding special items. Lastly, the game has a unique industrial-age setting, with hints of steam-punk. The city is corrupt, dirty, and bloody. That said, the original game, Dishonored, is equally good, if not better, than the sequel.
Infamous: Second Son
The Infamous saga delivered one of the first successful open-world games for the PlayStation platform. Seconds Sons are the latest entry, and many consider it the best. Sadly, the series is over and remains a PlayStation exclusive. Second Sons is a game by Sycker Punch, Ghost of Tsushima’s developer. The game follows Delsin Rowe, a superpowered guy in Seattle. He has a mix of electrical and superhuman powers to traverse the city with fun mechanics and fast-paced parkour. Then, combat relies on combos, powers, and fast-paced action. On top of that, there’re choice mechanics that affect the city’s secondary NPCs and lead to two distinct endings. The site content doesn’t feel as strong as other games on the list. It relies on gathering collectibles, which may feel too much on a second playthrough. Either way, Second Sons was a blueprint for Sucker Punch’s open-world action RPGs. It has character progression, parkour traversal, choices, and strong cinematic cuts.
