Sucker Punch’s Ghost Of Tsushima has been in development since 2014, but it was only officially revealed in 2017 with its first trailer during Paris Games Week. We’ve been waiting for this game since 2014’s Infamous Second Son and Infamous First Light, but it was definitely worth it (check out our review here).

In a post on PlayStation Blog, Sucker Punch co-founder Brian Fleming revealed that they already decided on two main aspects of the game that they wanted to make from the beginning, which includes “a large, open-world experience” and “melee combat”.

However, they didn’t yet know what setting to choose for their game, even considering pirates, Rob Roy, and The Three Musketeers. They ultimately decided on a feudal Japan setting and the rest is history.

He said:

“Early on, we concluded that we wanted to build a large, open-world experience — and one that featured melee combat.

But beyond that we were uncertain.

Pirates?

Rob Roy?

The Three Musketeers?

All these were considered — but we kept coming back to feudal Japan and telling the story of a samurai warrior.

Then one fateful fall afternoon we found a historical account of the Mongol invasion of Tsushima in 1274, and the entire vision clicked into place.”

In hindsight, pirates would’ve been too similar to 2013’s Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. While The Three Musketeers has never received the AAA treatment, it still featured a French setting, which is the same as 2014’s Assassin’s Creed Unity. Rob Roy is like a Scottish Robin Hood of sorts and would’ve been the most unique setting.

The very first Ghost Of Tsushima concept art.

Things weren’t smooth sailing from there though, as Fleming revealed that they had to solve certain problems like how to make an open-world game with no modern technology or a protagonist with no superpowers.

He said:

“We had a lot of creative problems.

We wanted to tell the tale of one of the only samurai who survived the initial assault, but what was his story?

Who would our adversary be? Could we structure a game and story that featured a relatable, human experience — but also surround it with an anthology of other stories to explore?

And how would we present the story?

The world we were building had no modern technology, so no cellphones to help us communicate with the player, no glitzy super-powers to create visual spectacle.

Oh, and the entire game would collapse if we couldn’t figure out how to make melee combat work.

We had some serious problems to get to work on.”

In the meantime, you can check the rest of our coverage on Ghost Of Tsushima here.