So I’ve played a bit of the multiplayer mode now and it is actually a lot of fun - which surprised me as I was initially quite nonplussed when it was announced.
There are four classes
Samurai - tank
Hunter - ranged DPS, target marking/scouting
Assassin - melee DPS
Ronin - support & healing
You have to pick one of the four to unlock after finishing the tutorial, and you unlock another one of your choice each 8 levels.
You unlock abilities with XP, and you get random but level appropriate new gear with successes. You have a sword, bow, ghost weapon and charm and there seems a decent variety of loot to choose from, both in types of item and the bonuses they give you. Rare or better items have better perks, which can also be rerolled if you don’t like them. There are also cosmetic items to get by completing longer term landmarks - 100 assassinations, etc. Item loot is shared between your classes (but only one class can hold an item at a time), level progression is account based.
You earn currency for mission completions and ‘daily challenges’ (which don’t seem to run out or change daily, maybe that’s just me). The daily challenges are minor landmarks - ‘kill 10 enemy while standing on a slackine’, ‘kill 20 brute enemies’, that kind of thing. The daily challenges give you the currency to retoll rare or betters, the other currencies are from everything and they are used to unlock new abilities and preroll the day challenges if you don’t think you’re going to do them i.e. if you’re playing samurai and get daily that need you to be sneaky. Nothing, as far as I can see, costs actual money, it’s all unlocked by progression or grinding.
There two modes. Each mode uses ‘maps’ which are cut out of the main game. They’re big, but not ‘10 minutes to run across them’ big.
‘Survival’ is essentially up to four players, capture and hold three objectives against up to 15 waves of bad guys. I had a go with three players, quite low level and didn’t really know what we were doing. We got our arses kicked. Not sure if it ‘self balances’ for three rather than four players. Didn’t play it much, because…
‘Story’ - only two players, which is great shame. Several ( I think 10) missions each with three chapters each. Each chapter is effectively ‘a map’ to clear. Each mission has it’s own unique twist - there may be wizards who heal all other mobs within a certain radius, or enemies who are attuned to an certain element and you have to charge your weapons with the same element before you can hurt them much. It’s not entirely open world - you have a distinct general path through the map to follow - but it’s flexible enough to allow for you to try a variety of tactics and use the various skills you have. I was playing with me as hunter and the other player as an assassin so it was full on stealth, keep to the rooftops and grasses and silent or archery kills where you can. Then my team mate swapped to a samurai, he’d go charging in and I’d provide support with the bow. Its just flexible enough that you feel you’re working with the skills you have (as oppose to always devolving to a straight brawler) as you want to and does feel like you’re actually getting more powerful as you progress. when we were in full on stealth, we did one chapter and on the intermediate loading screen we were talking and we realised we did the whole level with out either of us talking a single hit. They literally never saw us coming.
As you can possibly tell, the story mode to me is where it really shines, and I so wish it was more than two player. There’s a Raid mode int he menu, but it’s not available yet. if that turns out to be ‘four player story’ it will be pretty amazing. It reminds me a little of the old splinter cell games, although obviously it’s not adversarial, it’s you vs the game. It turns out Ghost of Tsushima is an epic co-op game. Who knew?