Sucker Punch Creative Director Jason Connell said GoT’s size is both “in the amount of stuff that’s in it and also just sheer landscape, square footage-wise.” The game version of Tsushima is modeled after the actual island of the same name, though Connell said it’s not meant to be “a one-to-one recreation.”

Apart from making the general environment feel realistic, Connell said Sucker Punch’s goal was making sure the world has enough in it to satisfy completionists and those who want just the story. It’s “a world big enough that has both those opportunities. People that can just play story and people that can go get lost in the environment.”

So it sounds like concerns over Ghost of Tsushima being a pretty-but-empty world are unfounded at this point.

Connell also touched on the process of creating distinct environments. Since Ghost of Tsushima has no waymarks, Sucker Punch wanted to give players memorable areas to act as mental markers. There’s the Golden Forest shown in last week’s State of Play, plus a bamboo forest and swamp area. But Connell didn’t tell IGN how many biomes we can expect.

Still, Ghost of Tsushima’s July 17 release date isn’t that far off, so we’ll know soon enough.

The full story is over on IGN. Stay tuned to GameSkinny for more Ghost of Tsushima news as it stalks through the night, and check out our Ghost of Tsushima pre-order guide if you haven’t secured your copy already.

Sucker Punch Talks Ghost of Tsushima Map Size and Content   Ghost of Tsushima - 38