The first Ghost of Tsushima had a black-and-white option called Kurosawa Mode. The tribute to the legendary film director was meant to add a vintage aesthetic and heightened gravity to the samurai adventure’s panoramic vistas and cinematic showdowns, to varying levels of success. To be honest, I don’t think it worked that well. It felt more like an Instagram filter gimmick than anything else (though others really liked it). Ghost of Yotei, the PlayStation 5 sequel out this fall, is getting a dedicated lo-fi beats mode. Here’s why I’m much more excited about that.
Sucker Punch showed it off near the very end of its State of Play dedicated to the upcoming open-world blockbuster this week. The lo-fi beats mode was arranged by Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo director Shinichirō Watanabe. Based on the brief preview, it sounds not unlike what you might get by streaming a lo-fi beats playlist on the PS5 Spotify app in the background while playing the game. This one just happens to be incorporated directly into it, and with Watanabe’s input, it will hopefully include some unique tracks that complement the open-world exploration and fighting taking place on screen.
It’s another gimmick, sure, but unlike the Kurosawa mode, it’s not being used as a visual shorthand to impart unearned meanings and depth to the game’s world, characters, and story. Instead, it’s a nod to the way people actually play big open-world games full of backtracking and side content. For every dramatic scene, emotional relationship, or thematically rich detail, there are hours, sometimes dozens, spent doing fun, weird, and extremely repetitive gamer shit. While immersive environments and organic exploration are part of the appeal of the open-world genre, so too is the PowerWash Simulator-like serenity and satisfaction of methodically cleaning up every enemy camp and collectible icon on the map.
Lots of people already listen to other stuff while doing this busywork. Sometimes it’s turning the game’s soundtrack off and putting on other music. Sometimes it’s catching up on five-hour-long podcasts. Some people even watch other shows and movies entirely during these activities. Sony designed an entire $200 accessory exactly for this purpose called the PlayStation Portal. It sold unexpectedly well. The lo-fi beats mode doesn’t just accept this, it embraces it by trying to add Ghost of Yotei’s own bespoke take on the practice.
This is basically how radio stations function in the Grand Theft Auto series. Zipping around Rockstar’s cities would be completely different without the deep catalog of licensed tunes players can flip through while getting to the next mission marker or dodging the cops. More games deserve them, whether they make fictional sense or not. Who knows if Yotei’s lo-fi beats mode will be as good. Fans are hoping for at least one Nujabes track, among others. But it’s a worthwhile acknowledgement of the way people actually engage with games.
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