Ghost Of Tsushima: 8 Tiny Details That'll Blow Your Mind

by Ewan Paterson

1. 'Kurosawa Mode' Is More Than Just A Filter

Sony Interactive Entertainment

The functional qualities of Ghost of Tsushima's 'Kurosawa Mode' are a tad difficult to assess, mainly because Tsushima is itself one of the most vibrant and colourful looking games I've ever encountered. Filtering that out in black and white seems like an odd, if not novel choice, particularly when players need to utilise colour to navigate the environment.

All that said, it's clear that Sucker Punch have put effort into the mode, and that it's not just a filter that turns everything black and white. If you do wish to dabble in the mode, you'll notice a change in audio. According to Sucker Punch's Jason Connell (in a conversation with EW), the studio's audio team "had an internal tool that mimicked sounds of old TV and, specifically, megaphones, radios, TVs back to the ’50s,” to better convey that cinematic feeling.

Players will also notice film grain and other such effects that attempt to hammer home the game's filmic sensibilities even more.

There's no denying the effort that has gone into it, but I would also just like to awkwardly tack-on that the best way to play the game is still in full colour, taking in the full rainbow of saturated palettes that distinguish Tsushima from its contemporaries. 'Kurosawa Mode' might be fun to flick on for a couple of minutes or so to get that perfect shot in photo mode, but don't let it wash out Tsushima's beauty.

Plus, if you are after a hearty dose of black and white samurai action, you could do a lot worse than to just watch Kurosawa's films instead! Rashomon and Seven Samurai are both great places to start, and feature Toshiro Mifune doing Toshiro Mifune things as an unreliable outlaw and maverick ronin respectively.

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READ NEXT - Ghost Of Tsushima: 10 Samurai Films You NEED To Watch First

Yojimbo Ghost Of Tsushima
Toho/Sony Interactive Entertainment
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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.