Is ‘Ghost Of Tsushima’ better than ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’?

Well, there is a question I wouldn’t have thought a month ago, but here we are.

This article was inspired by a tweet and subsequent conversation from the Washington Post’s Gene Park, comparing the two hits, and while they are different games in many ways, I understand why they would put them side by side.

Both are open world games where you ride horses and kill people. They are visually stunning, some of the most beautiful games of the generation. They are pieces from the historical period. They have compelling stories. The stories of Westerns and Samurai have been sharing DNA for centuries (read: Most Westerns are scams of Samurai stories), so here we are.

The consensus I’m seeing on the one hand is that Ghost of Tsushima is a better game because it’s more fun to play. The other side says that Red Dead is better because its overall quality and range is so much higher.

The criticisms seem to be on one side. Red Dead is the most reviewed Xbox or PS4 game of the generation with a 97 in Metacritic, linked only to GTA V, which technically debuted in the last generation. But Ghost of Tsushima is getting the highest Metacritical user score I’ve ever seen, a 9.3 with 13,000 comments on (Red Dead is 8.4).

The way I see this framed debate is how much realism do you want in your video games and what does that mean for the “fun factor”.

Some games, depending on the genre, do not have this problem. God of War, for example, has you controlling a literal god (well, ancient god) so that combat can be as wild and crazy as you want. But in games like Red Dead or Ghost of Tsushima, you are a normal human being. A really good human being to kill, perhaps, but a human being anyway.

We see a division here both in combat and in how you interact with the world. Here, I think Ghost of Tsushima takes it.

Tsushima’s combat is an expert combination of stopping, dodging, blocking, different combat positions, different phantom weapons, and then direct combat or stealth assassination. Everything has been tuned to perfection so you feel the right balance of challenge, but you also feel like a complete rough samurai.

Red Dead, meanwhile, has less attractive combat. The traditional Rockstar-style auto target where a headshot or a center mass shot or two shoots down enemies. As “advanced” as we see combat in Red Dead is through horse chases or Eagle Eye slow motion mode, but that’s it. It’s passable, but no one really leaves Red Dead thinking their shooting is the best in the industry.

The same goes for the smaller aspects of the game. Let’s say Jin needs a specific flower to make a poison that you find in nature. You can see her flicker on the screen, drive on her while she’s on her horse at 20 miles per hour, and if she hits R2 anywhere near her, she’ll pick her up. In Red Dead, that would require you to disassemble your horse and go through a literal scene that shows Arthur cutting the plant and putting it in his bag. Now repeat that 200x with the amount of flowers that you will collect throughout the game.

There is also a sweep. Jin will run around a camp hitting R2 and collecting coins or supplies around him with little effort. Arthur needs to open each drawer or cabinet manually and deliberately put everything in its package. The same goes for skinning animals, done in an instant for Jin, a complete (horrible) scene every time for Arthur.

This results in more pressing discomfort as well. Undoubtedly, one of my biggest irritations with Red Dead was Arthur’s propensity to constantly hit trees with his horse, something that is impossible to do in Tsushima when Jin just glides alongside them. Arthur’s horse behaves in a more “realistic” way, however, Jin’s horse makes the game more attractive as it is not something to worry about.

This is the push and pull of realism in games. Arthur has more deliberate and realistic movements than Jin, both in combat and on horseback or even collecting objects. For some, this can bolster the vitality of the world, for others, it’s just an unnecessary filler that makes controlling Arthur feel arduous, while Jin can get what he needs and get back to the important work of cutting the Mongols.

So Ghost of Tsushima is the clear winner? I don’t think it’s that simple.

A hyper focus in realism works for the benefits of Red Dead in other ways. It has great performance capture technology that is simply a level or two higher than what Tsushima uses. And while Tsushima had a much better story than he could have hoped for, it’s hard to compare it to the lengthy epic story of Arthur, John, and Dutch, which features some of the best writing and acting in the entire medium.

The Red Dead story is not perfect. I think there were too many “we should trust the Dutch for no reason” moments, and some whole sections like that weird part on the island might have been cut, but overall it’s one of the most compelling narratives in the games. And so, I think it ends up above Ghost of Tsushima on that front, at least.

All of this reminds me of what Naughty Dog was saying about The Last of Us Part 2 before its release, that games don’t have to be “fun” to be good.

That’s the kind of division I’m seeing here. Players who simply got too exhausted with Red Dead can’t get enough of Tsushima. Although players who stuck with Red Dead long-term and experienced its brilliant conclusion may think it’s ultimately the best game.

This is why I can land on a statement like “Ghost of Tsushima is nicer but Red Dead 2 is better overall.” Those disagree, but that’s the point. The game is complicated, a balance between the game mechanics and the systems you experience, and the essence of the story and the performances. You rarely find games that literally have it all (I’d put God of War in that category), but you’re often giving up on one thing or another.

The fact that we are comparing Ghost of Tsushima and Red Dead 2 absolutely It’s a huge win for Sucker Punch, formerly the creator of the Infamous games (well, not great), and now they’re in the same conversation with one of the world’s top developers, making some of the most beloved series on the games history. That’s no small feat, and they did it with presumably less time and smaller equipment and budget.

I don’t know who “wins” here. I guess we all do, but we’re likely to see this divide between chasing realism and fun indefinitely haunt the next generation here.

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