Anh-Thu Nguyen

The developers of GHOST OF TSUSHIMA (2020) made no secret about their main source of inspiration for their game set in the 13th century feudal era of Japan: “So much of our inspiration comes from samurai cinema – not just Akira Kurosawa […].” (Tapsell 2020) Rather than foregrounding a claim on historical accuracy as is often the case for so-called historical games, the developers explicitly state pop culture to be their main point of reference. How has this approach shaped the game itself? What elements were taken from modern (Japanese) pop culture to make up a distinct atmosphere of feudal Japan? What does this mean for the player?  As American developer Sucker Punch Productions closely worked with their Japanese localisation team to ensure a specific atmosphere constituting 13th century feudal Japan, rather than accusing the developers of cultural appropriation, the game’s production and aesthetics can be understood as a transcultural transformation primarily derived from popular culture as well as tourist destinations and myths. As far as GHOST OF TSUSHIMA is concerned, media-critical analysis may not only look at the obvious cinema references but also at media-specific aspects of the game that are part of the game’s atmosphere: from audio-visual cues in the form of wind, birds and foxes giving directions, weather simulations and landscapes embodying specific seasons, to a player’s pilgrimage to shrines by traversing them in climbing puzzles. To expand the current scope of the field of game studies that usually does not take Japanese cultural contexts into consideration despite Japan’s immense influence on the video game market (Schules 2015, Picard and Pelletier-Gagnon 2015), this submission is part of a bigger on-going project engaging with games that are either created by Japanese developers or informed by Japanese culture.