The most damning thing I can say about Ghost of Tsushima is that every time a cutscene or dialogue sequence starts I pull my phone out to scroll twitter. Just incredibly dull writing and characters. A lifeless weeaboo reenactment of clichés from samurai movie classics this game has no business trying to associate itself with.

That said, I’m still playing thirty-odd hours later. So something is really working for me here on a mechanical level. The core exploratory/combat/base-capture loop might be the most successful execution I’ve seen of the Ubisoft sandbox formula.