Ghost of Tsushima will release this year on July 17th, 2020. However, curious gamers wanting to know what Sucker Punch Productions has in store for those interested in Ghost of Tsushima will find that the combat will only take one or two hits to kill an enemy, which also applies to the player.

The above information comes from a recent interview that Sucker Punch Productions took up with IGN regarding Ghost of Tsushima’s combat. The publication site relays Nate Fox — game director — saying the following when asked about fighting enemies in the forthcoming title:

“We are trying to make a grounded game in that sense, so a couple blows from the enemy will kill you. The game is very challenging. We have three words to describe the combat: Mud, blood and steel. We absolutely honor the lethality of the sword. We watched samurai movies and people go down with one or two strikes, and that is embedded inside of the combat. Beating the Mongols in battle will be hard, but it’s that challenge that makes it feel alive and the victory rewarding. You can’t just run into a camp and fight 5 people at the same time, you will get overwhelmed and die.”

Aside from multi-battles, there will be one-on-one battles that resemble “classic samurai” conflicts, as seen in older films. You can read how Fox regrets not showing these duals in the State of Play gameplay reveal:

“One thing we didn’t show at State of Play which I wish we had, was that the game features duels against other expert swordsman. This is classic samurai stuff. Those fights are incredibly difficult and they’re driven from personality and get solved in the most cinematic way possible, which is also true to fantasy. You need to study your opponent and understand how they attack in order to win.”

Moreover, we learn from the interview that the red bar resembles Jin Sakai’s health. We also learn that the golden spheres are Sakai’s “resolve.” Resolve can be used to regain a little bit of health or to perform devastating attacks.

In addition to the above, these attacks drain Sakai a little bit, which means you must use these golden spheres tactically to best any situation:

“So the red bar is health. The golden spheres are Jin’s resolve. He uses these to regain a little bit of health. Also, it’s his grit to perform his most devastating attacks. These attacks drain him a little bit, [so] you have to make a tactical decision if you’d rather heal or really bring the fight.”

Ghost of Tsushima will release this year on July 17th for PS4.