JASON CONNELL: So in 2014, we
came out with Second Son,
and about six or seven months
later,
we came out with First Light.
And then about a year from that,
PS4 Pro was starting to come out
so we wanted to support that
with Second Son
and Fetch with First Light
and all the cool laser bullets
that come with that.
But behind the scenes what we
were really working on was
trying to figure out how do we
make a new game.
Like, if we were going to depart
from Infamous,
it's got to be awesome and what
is the process to get there.
NATE FOX: When we were looking
at our next project,
we wanted to stay open-world
because we're giving authority
and power to the player,
and we didn't want 
to walk away from that.
We think it's integral to modern
gaming
that players are in charge.
JASON CONNELL: And I think in
true Sucker Punch fashion,
we answered that with,
"Hey, what does everybody at the
studio think?"
And we had about, I believe it
was 70, 72 pitches,
72 ideas that kind of 
all formed up
from various corners 
of the studio.
And then we try to coagulate
that into like one idea.
Turns out these things are
really, really hard.
NATE FOX: We thought a lot about
open-world games and what makes
some open-world games just
beautiful and great.
And we kind of settled on
wanting to have a clear fantasy
the player like who are you,
what are you going to be doing
in the game.
And then we came upon this 
game idea
which is awesomely simple;
right?
To hear about it 
is to want to play it.
Who doesn't want to go to 
feudal Japan?
Who doesn't want to be a samurai
with a katana on their
hip; right?
JASON CONNELL: When you tell
somebody you get to play as a
samurai, you don't really have
to say anything else.
You just say that fantasy and
everybody just builds a list of
scenarios and narratives and
gameplay scenes that you might
get to play in that.
NATE FOX: When we hit upon the
Mongol invasion of Tsushima
of 1274, it all clicked.
Suddenly you knew who the 
heroes were,
who the villains were, what the
stakes were for the world,
and you had a video game.
MAN: I'll ask you once again,
samurai, do you surrender?
JASON CONNELL: Ghost of Tsushima
is an action, stealth,
adventure game where you play a
samurai in feudal Japan,
and we're taking inspiration
from the historical 
point in time
where the Mongol army invaded
the island of Tsushima.
NATE FOX: All those locations
are in engine.
They're in the world.
That's the place that you're
going to defend,
a huge island filled with a lot
of different places,
towns, people.
There's so much to learn;
there's so much to see.
JASON CONNELL: I think player
choice in this game will mean
something very different than
other games we made in the past.
We really want you to have that
choice of,
"Hey, that cool bamboo forest
over there,
I really want to check it out.
I want to head in that
direction,
and I want to see what it is."
There's no waypoint.
There's nothing that says
go here
and look at this bamboo forest.
We hopefully are presenting
something that's beautiful and
exotic, that's different than
the current place
that you might be in,
and that will come at a world
choice; right?
That's your adventure choice,
like, where do I want to go.
NATE FOX: In Infamous you
explore powers.
In this game, we let you explore
what it is to be a samurai
inside this enormous landscape
of medieval Japan.
JASON CONNELL: Here at the
studio sometimes we talk about
the world as a character.
And I think that even in Second
Son we pushed really hard to
make the flavors of the world
come alive.
There's all these other elements
that make you remember what it
really felt like to be a tourist
in this place.
And we're going to do the same
thing for this game starting
with some of the shots you see
in the trailer.
We've been working on this game
for three and a half years,
and it's exciting to be at a
spot where we are finally able
to share with the world what
we've been working on.
NATE FOX: And now it's just up
to us
to actually deliver 
this fantasy,
this wonderful fantasy about
being a samurai in feudal Japan.
