Highlights

  • Ghost of Tsushima: Legends offered a refreshing multiplayer experience with samurai combat and supernatural elements inspired by Japanese folklore.
  • It released before Sony started its big push into live-service gaming, but Sony's recent success in Helldivers 2 shows Legends needs a new lease on life.
  • A new Ghost of Tsushima: Legends could stand out in the live-service market, combining unique samurai elements with polished gameplay for a major hit.

Beloved open-world samurai game Ghost of Tsushima received a solid co-op spin-off mode called Legends a few months after release, offering another way to engage with the game's combat sandbox. While Ghost of Tsushima: Legends still holds up, its context within PlayStation's broader release strategy proves that it was ahead of its time.

Ghost of Tsushima: Legends was a free multiplayer spin-off released in 2020 which quickly became regarded as a pleasant surprise for many fans of the base game. The multiplayer mode allows players to team up with up to three companions and progress through three distinct classes: Samurai, Hunter, Ronin, and Assassin. The different classes add depth and diversity to the strong foundation that is Ghost of Tsushima's combat, and the gameplay, which is inspired from traditional Japanese folklore, offers a fresh, supernatural take on the original game's grounded, historically accurate world. For as good as Legends was and still is, it's a bit barebones, at least when compared to other free-to-play multiplayer games. If it were to launch today, though, things would likely be different.

Ghost of Tsushima Jin Sakai With Sword Drawn and Crouching
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Ghost of Tsushima: Legends Could Have Been Part of Sony's Live-Service Initiative

Sony Is Doubling Down On Live-Service Games

Ghost of Tsushima: Legends was something of an oddity when it first launched. While it used to be commonplace for single-player games to come with tacked-on multiplayer modes (to varying degrees of success), the trend had mostly died down by 2020, especially for Sony's first-party games, which were defined by their narrative-driven, linear natures. These days, however, things are rather different.

Sony has been fairly transparent about its desire to push into the live-service market, investing heavily in a number of games-as-a-service multiplayer titles. Recently, Helldivers 2, developed by Sony-owned Arrowhead Game Studios, launched to rapturous applause, with thousands of players praising its tight shooting mechanics and endlessly rewarding cooperative gameplay. The recent success of Helldivers 2 proves that Sony can deliver a viral live-service game, which will no doubt encourage further financial support for the co-op title moving forward. If Legends were to have released in 2023 or 2024, receiving the same funding and support as a game like Helldivers 2, it could have enjoyed a similar level of success, with more expansive, robust content.

PlayStation Could Strike Gold With a Ghost of Tsushima: Legends Follow-Up

If Sony and Sucker Punch decide to release a new Ghost of Tsushima: Legends, either in addition to or in lieu of the next single-player game in the franchise, it could wind up being something special. An upgraded version of Legends, boasting an amount and quality of content similar to a game like Helldivers 2, would stand out from the rest of the live-service crowd, which consists primarily of first-or third-person shooters. The unique samurai backdrop, focus on traditional Japanese folklore and mythology, and third person melee combat, not to mention Sucker Punch's proven history of polished game design, could lead to a major hit that pleases fans and is profitable for Sony.

A new Ghost of Tsushima: Legends would also enjoy the benefit of brand recognition and loyalty, which is something that other new live-service IP can struggle with.

Ghost of Tsushima: Legends got its last update after just two years, leaving many fans to wonder what might have been had the game received the long-term support of a flagship live-service game like Destiny 2 or Fortnite. If it had been released a few years later, during the current era of ambitious live-service projects from Sony, this very well could have been the case. Having said that, with nearly a dozen PlayStation-exclusive live-service games reportedly in the works, a new multiplayer Ghost of Tsushima may see the light of day yet.