Becoming the ghost will require skills and cunning, so we’re here to help.

Ghost of Tsushima is one heck of an open-world game, you play as Jin Sakai who is one of the surviving samurai in the island of Tsushima, and you will do everything to stop the Mongol invasion and protect your people. But it will be a tough task as it’s you against an entire army, so you will be needing every tactic to subdue your foes. Luckily, we’re here to help you out by giving some tips in surviving combat and making a more efficient approach in your journey.

Explore your world

Tsushima Island is a large place to explore and a lot of things to discover, it may become overwhelming at the start but you can pace your journey by exploring one area at the time. By exploring shrouded areas on the island, you can discover campsites with refugees that are in need of help, make sure to talk to any civilians with a text bubble on their heads to open up new side quests that can reward you with reputation points, charms and materials for upgrades.

Be sure to complete any side quests that you discovered along your way, and in some cases, you may randomly encounter Mongols or bandits patrolling the area, you can dispatch them for loot or to charge up your Resolve. As you rescue civilians from the Mongols or bandits, they can pinpoint any occupied camps by the Mongols that you can clear out, once you liberated the entire region, the whole map will be unshrouded and you can find other undiscovered areas that you can visit.

Follow that bird

Once in a while, you will notice a golden bird chirping and flying around you that is signaling to follow it. These golden birds tend to show a nearby interest area, so you should follow it as much as possible. They can lead you to shrines, camps, hidden items, fox dens, or even hot springs that can provide you with increased health and resolve, or sometimes powerful charms that can aid you in your battles.

Master the blade

There are two combat styles that you can utilize in the game, either as an honorable samurai or a dishonorable ghost. Mastering both approaches will make battles easier as you progress further in the game. Here are some tips for combat:

Learn to parry attacks to quickly dispose of enemies with a single strike

Conserve your Resolve for healing whenever you fight

You can initiate a standoff or do assassinations to quickly eliminate up to three enemies, also make sure to learn the upgrade skills for standoffs and assassinate attacks.

Learn to quickly switch stance when dealing with multiple with different weapons as the battle will be difficult if you are not prepared. Always use the correct stance that has an advantage against certain weapons.

Press the L2 with any bow equipped to quickly sheath your sword

Quickly learn the kunai ghost weapon at the start of the game to help stagger enemies

Do more odd jobs

At the start of the game, you can complete the first set of story missions (gold-labeled quest icons) to gain some of the essential skills and weapons, but once you managed to unlock more side quests (white-labeled quests) at that point, you can halt your story progression and focus on those side missions. Completing side quests can give more materials for upgrades and other useful charms, some quests can even reward you with kits that act as cosmetics.

Completing side quests can sometimes lead you to Mythic quests (quests labeled in blue-gray) that can unlock powerful mythic skills.

When you head back to story missions and are getting some difficulty beating enemies, you can load your save file (if you do a manual save) before you took the story mission and head back completing side quests first until you are strong enough.

Dress to impress

Each armor has its unique capabilities and is useful in certain situations. Traveler’s Attire is useful when exploring as it clears more shroud on the map, Samurai Clan Armor is using during battles and Ronin Armor is helpful for stealth.

Charms can provide great benefits to Jin, so make sure to discover more fox dens to unlock more charm slots and find shrines to get the strongest charms. Equip them based on your playing style to give you the edge in your adventure.

Now you’re ready to fend off the Mongol invasion and save the island of Tsushima. Ghost of Tsushima is now available for the PlayStation 4. You can check out our review by heading here.