Ghost of Tsushima devs to be honored as tourism ambassadors for real-life island

Two of Ghost of Tsushima's lead developers have been made tourism ambassadors of the real-life island. 

As first reported by VideoGamesChronicle, Ghost of Tsushima creative director Jason Connell and game director Nate Fox will both be made permanent tourism ambassadors for the island of Tsushima. The honor has been granted by the city of Tsushima in Nagasaki, where the mayor of the city has announced that a new tourism initiative based on the game, to encourage more people to visit the island behind Sucker Punch's game.

"[Connell and Fox] spread the name and history of Tsushima to the whole world in such a wonderful way," said the Mayor Hitakatsu of Tsushima city. "Even a lot of Japanese people do not know the history of the Gen-ko period. When it comes to the world, the name and location of Tsushima is literally unknown, so I cannot thank them enough for telling our story with such phenomenal graphics and profound stories."

Currently, the ceremony bestowing the honor upon Connell and Fox is scheduled to take place digitally, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However once the current travel bans have lifted, Tsushima's mayor wishes to extend an offer for the entire development team at Sucker Punch to visit the island and city of Tsushima. 

Ghost of Tsushima has been nothing short of a smash hit success for Sucker Punch since it launched last year in 2020. After selling through well over 5 million copies worldwide as of November 2020, players of Sucker Punch's game raised a grand total of $260,000 to restore the island's real-life shrine, which suffered significant damage due to a recent storm.

Elsewhere, there's been a number of hints as to a sequel to Ghost of Tsushima being in development at Sucker Punch. Several job advertisements at Sucker Punch have hinted at a new game being in the works, as they're asking for combat designers familiar with Ghost of Tsushima's combat, and story leads to help tell a new tale set within feudal Japan.

To see what we made of Sucker Punch's open-world action game, head over to our Ghost of Tsushima review.