Several interviews are coming out right now, talking about several aspects of the expansion.
(getting only a couple quotes from each interview)
Push Square:
Press Start Australia:
Famitsu(Japanese):
Quote with Google Translate
IGN:
Washington Post:
(getting only a couple quotes from each interview)
Push Square:
Push Square: Straight into it, how big is the Iki Island expansion?
Nate Fox, Creative Director: If you're familiar with Ghost of Tsushima, Iki Island is the size of, really, the first act of the main game, Izuhara. It's a big, dense story with a lot of landscape and secrets to discover.
Can we expect Iki Island to have the same kind of open world map density as Izuhara from the main game?
NF: So, it's very similar to Ghost of Tsushima, where we strove to get this just-right feeling of, you know, exploration and discovery, of moments of quiet and moments of violent tension from swordplay. So when we got that dialled in for Ghost of Tsushima, we used that same overall feeling of peaks and valleys for Iki Island.
Press Start Australia:
CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT WHAT SORT OF NEW ABILITIES AND GEAR JIN MIGHT ACQUIRE TO COMBAT THESE NEW ENEMIES?
JC: Without giving it all away, what I will say is that there are some new skills and some new abilities. There's some things that we lean into a little bit more that we're pretty excited about. We quite like our Mythic Tales that we had in Tsushima, so leaning into something like that, this game is going to be very rewarding and fun. Also we lean into nature as sort of a theme. We had foxes in the base game, but there are more types of animals, I think about three more in total in this one for you to experience.
And now we have actual horse armour, as well as a Horse Charge ability that kind of scatters guys out of the way and you can use it every now and then and it's quite cool. You can see it in the trailer – it's pretty exciting, it gives a whole new use to riding your horse through an area. I'm using it as an actual weapon, which is very exciting. So yeah, we have a number of things that we're not talking about quite yet, but that should be really exciting to our players when they jump in.
Famitsu(Japanese):
Quote with Google Translate
―How did you decide to develop the " Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut " announced this time ?
I was wondering if it would be more entertaining for the players even after the development of Jason's main story was completed. One of them was a major update that implemented the multiplayer mode "Legends", but I thought there might be more stories to tell. In particular, I thought that if I could draw a story that would make it easier to understand who Hitoshi Sakai was, it would be more enjoyable for the players. That is the story of Iki, which will be added to "Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut" this time.
IGN:
Introducing a New Villain, and a New Island
IGN's Ghost of Tsushima review hailed Khotun Khan as a memorable, impactful villain, a leader of the Mongol army seeking to take Jin's home for his own. It's a tall order to live up to, and the Iki Island expansion will be introducing a new villain in the form of the mysterious Eagle, who Downs hopes will surprise players.
"One of our big considerations was: how do we create a villain who is a compelling Mongol leader, who reflects actual Mongol history, but also is an absolute contrast to Khotun Khan," Downs said. "To give us something different, and new, and surprising. And then with [The Eagle] in particular, there are aspects of her as both a khatun, which is essentially a woman khan, but also as a shaman...how does that change her goals, her style of leadership, what she's trying to accomplish? And how does that affect Jin in ways that maybe he hasn't been challenged before on Tsushima?"
With her role as a shaman, it also perhaps opens up Jin's story to a little more of a fantastical bent than seen in the main campaign. Of course, the Legends multiplayer mode goes into full supernatural territory, but Downs said the team's goal was to build off what was introduced in the single-player campaign.
"We do want to respect the world that we've created in Ghost of Tsushima, which is grounded historically," he said. "We wanted to keep that, although there are touches of supernatural elements like the Guiding Wind, for instance. It's not literally supernatural in the way that Legends is, but...we took that as a springboard. Maybe not supernatural, per se, but there's that fine line between what's supernatural and what's psychological."
Washington Post:
Fox also said more combat skills will be included to enhance Jin's existing abilities and skill trees. He didn't specify what Jin could do, but we can expect them to further enhance his core skills of stealth, swordplay and archery. All this, he promises, is further enhanced by the work they've done for the DualSense controller haptic feedback.
"We devoted our energy to make it feel like you're holding a katana, so when you swing your sword and it bounces off an enemy's shield, you feel it in your hand," Fox said. "That's something new to us as game makers, who are used to working in audio and visual, but not this kinetic experience of entertainment."
