As seen in the latest State of Play, Ghost of Yōtei is changing things up when it comes to combat, opting to give protagonist Atsu far more tools and weapons than Ghost of Tsushima‘s Jin.
The State of Play gameplay deep dive describes Atsu as “no samurai or ninja” but a “lone wolf mercenary.” The way she fights reflects this. Unlike Jin–who only relied on a few weapons to engage enemies in announced duels or assassinate foes from the shadows–Atsu can easily wade into open combat armed with a katana, spear, kusarigama, ōdachi, and dual swords, and then also wield a half bow, longbow, teppo, kunai, bombs, and blinding powder.
The gameplay revealed a rock-paper-scissors system to Atsu’s arsenal, describing certain weapons as hard counters to specific threats–the ōdachi is especially useful for dealing with large enemies, for example, and the dual swords trump spear-wielders. Tsushima had a similar system, but it centered around stances, not weapons. Jin could change his stance and how he held his katana in a fight, with different stances being more adept for handling certain foes.
