Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut review

Our VerdictA slow opening and a slightly dated core game engine do not detract from a thrilling and engaging samurai epic that’s ported with skill to PC.

Our Verdict

A slow opening and a slightly dated core game engine do not detract from a thrilling and engaging samurai epic that’s ported with skill to PC.

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Need to KnowWhat is it?The PC-enhanced edition of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut, which includes the main game and the Iki Island DLC.Release dateMay 18, 2024Expect to pay$59.99/£49.99DeveloperSucker Punch ProductionsPublisherPlayStation PC LLCReviewed onNvidia RTX 3090 Ti, 32GB RAM (DDR4), AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, ASRock B450M Pro4Steam DeckNoLinkSteam$39.99View at AmazonLow Stock$60.99View at Walmart

Need to Know

What is it?The PC-enhanced edition of Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut, which includes the main game and the Iki Island DLC.Release dateMay 18, 2024Expect to pay$59.99/£49.99DeveloperSucker Punch ProductionsPublisherPlayStation PC LLCReviewed onNvidia RTX 3090 Ti, 32GB RAM (DDR4), AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, ASRock B450M Pro4Steam DeckNoLinkSteam$39.99View at AmazonLow Stock$60.99View at Walmart

$39.99View at AmazonLow Stock$60.99View at Walmart

$39.99View at Amazon

Low Stock$60.99View at Walmart

Low Stock

$60.99View at Walmart

Good news: Unsurprisingly, Ghost of Tsushima remains an excellent third-person action-adventure game four years after its initial release. It’s not suddenly become crap. Huzzah!

Doing an Assassin’s Creed-style game set in JapanyearsbeforeUbisoftdecided to makeAssassin’s Creed Shadows, Sucker Punch delivers a gripping, beautiful, and often memorable samurai epic—one loaded with tense sword fights, brutal assassinations, and plenty of story-telling class.

So, yes, I rate the game and recommend you buy and play it if you haven’t already, which it seems like plenty of PC gamershave already done. The Director’s Cut also includes the Iki Island expansion, so you’re getting the full Ghost of Tsushima experience.

(Image credit: Future)

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut review

Bringing a katana to a knife fight

It might not be on the bleeding edge, but Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut still delivers a number of improvements over the console edition, including unlocked framerates, support for Nvidia DLSS3, AMD FSR3, and Intel XeSS, as well as compatibility with Nvidia Reflex and image quality-enhancing Nvidia DLAA.

On top of that, this version of the game also supports ultrawide (21:9), super Ultrawide (32:9), and even 48:9 Triple Monitor support, meaning the sweeping landscapes of Tsushima really can stretch out to your vision’s periphery.

There are also a few nice little extras thrown in, too, such as the ability for cinematics to be rendered in real-time, a fact that unlocks Japanese voice language lip sync. This sounds like a small thing, but this isabsolutelya game you should play with Japanese audio, be that in Samurai Cinema mode (Japanese language, English subs, full-colour graphics) or Kurosawa (Japanese language, English subs, black and white, film grain heavy visuals) mode. As such, Japanese lip sync in cinematics adds to the immersion massively.

(Image credit: Future)

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut review

Finally, there’s adaptive haptic feedback, too, if you have a compatible controller. This means that you can get physical feedback when fighting with your blade, or shooting with your bow. A welcome addition.

As for things that arenotincluded with this PC edition, which I really would like to have seen, the most obvious is real time ray tracing, both in terms of global illumination and in terms of reflections. I’ll come back to this later. For more info on the game’s hardware demands, be sure to check out ourperformance analysis feature.

(Image credit: Future)

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut review

My experience with the PC version of the Director’s Cut

That high, stable framerate meant I found much of the combat easier and more natural compared to the console version. It’s not quite as brutal and unforgiving as a soulslike, but timing sword counters and parries is key in this game, so the smoothness is a real benefit. It also helped when lining up swift bow shots, especially firing from on horseback, which require a good degree of precision.

Swapping out the primary monitor for a 32:9 variant, the sweeping landscapes of Tsushima island do indeed look stunning. Wind rustling through the grasses and trees, shimmering lakes nestling up against war-torn rustic villages, majestic forts and pagodas breaking distant treelines—all seem slightly morerealwith the wider, perspective-broadening aspect ratio. That said, Ghost of Tsushima remains really rather pretty at any aspect ratio.

(Image credit: Sucker Punch, Sony)

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut review

(Image credit: Future)

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut review

It’s also a world where, thanks to the lack of ray tracing, there are moments when the lightning looks pretty old hat and flat compared newer open-world third person action-adventure games likeStar Wars Jedi: Survivor.

While the character models, textures, and lightning aren’t quite at 2024 standards, this doesn’t hamper the story or the action, with it technically pretty darn faultless. I didn’t experience a single crash, either, and the only visual glitch I saw was a distant pagoda not rendering properly once, with its angled rafters appearing to float in the air.

(Image credit: Sucker Punch, Sony)

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut review

A great PC port Sony should replicate

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut on PC is a great all-round port of a very good game, and is now the definitive way to play it. Yes, I’d have liked the options for more modern lighting effects to be enabled, but aside from that, Nixxes, who is responsible for the port, has done a great job here. Here’s hoping Sony continues to port to PC in a similar fashion, and in a more timely manner, too, such as the Japanese firm did recently withHelldivers 2.

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The Verdict81Read our review policyGhost of TsushimaA slow opening and a slightly dated core game engine do not detract from a thrilling and engaging samurai epic that’s ported with skill to PC.

The Verdict

81Read our review policyGhost of TsushimaA slow opening and a slightly dated core game engine do not detract from a thrilling and engaging samurai epic that’s ported with skill to PC.

81Read our review policy

Ghost of TsushimaA slow opening and a slightly dated core game engine do not detract from a thrilling and engaging samurai epic that’s ported with skill to PC.

Ghost of Tsushima

A slow opening and a slightly dated core game engine do not detract from a thrilling and engaging samurai epic that’s ported with skill to PC.

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Ghost of Tsushima PC performance analysis: Your CPU will be fine, your GPU will whine, but there are settings for every gamer out thereGhost of Tsushima’s PC port once again proves that PlayStation should do this sort of thing sooner, as player counts soar past every major Sony PC release (except Helldivers 2)

A screenshot from Ghost of Tsushima, showing a wide landscape, full of trees and hills, with the setting sun casting a red hue across the view

Ghost of Tsushima PC performance analysis: Your CPU will be fine, your GPU will whine, but there are settings for every gamer out there

A samurai from Ghost of Tsushima wields their blade, garbed in fearsome armour.

Ghost of Tsushima’s PC port once again proves that PlayStation should do this sort of thing sooner, as player counts soar past every major Sony PC release (except Helldivers 2)

LatestTeam Fortress 2’s just had the single biggest trade in its history, with ‘the absolute best hat you can get in the game’ going for around $40KSee more latest►

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Our Verdict#

Bringing a katana to a knife fight#

My experience with the PC version of the Director’s Cut#

A great PC port Sony should replicate#

Our Verdict

Bringing a katana to a knife fight

My experience with the PC version of the Director’s Cut

A great PC port Sony should replicate