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Modding, a strange way of “making cinema” with video games
With Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yōtei, Sucker Punch Productions turned the open-world game into a cinematic experience. Modders extended this gesture, to the point that their camera and filter tweaks found their way, as official modes, into the second game's menu.
There are many examples of “making cinema” in video games, but few among “AAA” and so-called open world projects such as Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yōtei, from the studio Sucker Punch Productions. Unlike similar games such as Red Dead Redemption 2, the success of this saga does not rest solely on some enhanced graphical execution, but also on the technical and artistic contribution of communities. In other words, on the modding practised by its own players. The very essence of the liberation of information, amateur creators in turn adapt both games.
Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yōtei combine multiple historical narratives of ancient Japan, from the end of the 13th century and the 17th century respectively. The islands on which the player builds and pursues their adventure reflect a drive towards transmediality, as the two games juxtapose the tone of the writing and the design intent of the exploration mechanics. One presents the romanticism of a feudal Japanese culture, while the other overturns the same territory into a dramatic, raw and bloody quest for revenge. This second aesthetic, that of Ghost of Yōtei, itself draws narrative inspiration from the film Lady Snowblood (1973) by Toshiya Fujita, itself a cross between the fantasy of Snow White and the cultural authenticity of Japanese vengeful honour. Even without playing it, the video game franchise is mediated not only as a technological object but above all as a cinematic one.
Simply playing Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yōtei is an “ultimate” demonstration of the legacy of cinema transposed to interactive play. And this in several respects. First, the aim is to bring to life a Japanese universe tied to chanbara, part of the jidai-geki family. Translatable as “Japanese sword cinema”, a genre that itself inspired the western, this cinema serves as a model for Sucker Punch Productions, which does not seek to imitate other video game narratives set in Kamakura-era Japan1, but to offer a renewal of the gaming experience, drawing the strength of its content from the contemplation of new cutting-edge technologies. By making objective markers, points of interest, the minimap serving as an ever-present compass and combat controls invisible, Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yōtei keep events at a distance from any player assistance. The player is detached from their usual exploration interfaces, in favour of total admiration of the crafted image and the landscapes. Then, a few elements and artistic choices offer consumer-players alternatives to guide their path: for example, the artificial generation of a “physical” wind that helps them find their way on the map, landscape design that leaves players free to guess and poeticise, on their own, the history of the places they explore, or fight choreographies that vary their own rhythm, between violence, blood and the steel of swords. In short, Sucker Punch Productions’ games condition the consumer-player to rethink their presence in the game or rather, to align with the studio’s creative intentions, their influence on the narrative tragedy that has become specific to their choices and entertainment preferences. The language of cinema used by the franchise thus treats the player as a spectator-actor.
Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yōtei lent themselves to mods from their official release, despite the different platforms of Sucker Punch Productions’ two projects, split between a PC port and a PlayStation 5 exclusive. Player-creators continue their quest for creative freedom, redoubling their inventiveness. Modding extends this approach on the players’ side. On PC, where Ghost of Tsushima was ported in 2024, community mods repurpose the camera, filters and staging to compose their own sequences, turning the game into a genuine filmmaking tool, whereas Yōtei, a PS5 exclusive, remains closed to this appropriation for the time being. From this has emerged a variety of cinematic signatures and treatments, giving players the choice of a precise set of graphical settings for the image. Thus, beyond the commercial versions, the artistic exercises around the Japanese series are the work of its earliest fans. Transmediality then comes full circle; the evolution of the medium is finally spread to a new mass of interests and individuals collectively sensitive to modders’ practice.
As the practice and appeal of transformed video games align with refinements in development, “modding” Ghost of Tsushima ends up legitimising the volunteer work of internet users with its sequel, Ghost of Yōtei. When the latter was released in October 2025, players were surprised to find certain settings in their options menu. They found numerous graphical modes there, not “mods”, which any user can switch on at any time and which allow the construction of the game and its landscapes to be adjusted in real time. All of them closely transpose the signatures of various Asian directors, whose aesthetics are put at the service of a Ghost of Yōtei seeking to show that it goes beyond its multiple narrative strategies. One example is the “Miike mode”. In tribute to the film Ichi the Killer (2001) by Takashi Miike, criticised for its ultra-violence, activating this option has a double effect: the camera angle moves closer during attacks and the amount of blood spilled on each hit increases. Another is the “Kurosawa mode”, paying tribute to the drama of Akira Kurosawa’s black-and-white films, notably his masterpiece Rashōmon (1950): when activated in the game, it removes all colour, then intensifies the film grain and light reflections.
Going against the grain of the industry, any user who devotes themselves to transforming a video game’s narrative by taking over its controls, infiltrating the project and assuming they own the rights to it may be accused of cheating and infringement. However, this approach, which first of all involves a hack of the game’s system or creative tools, can be defended in the name of a free contribution to the medium. This artistic stance shares the same intentions as the manipulation of moving images and photographic images. It is a discourse that undermines the industrial rights of creative exclusivity in order to glorify instead a second representative nature of the digital and the virtual, pirate but totally free. The hack becomes necessary to free minds and media in the digital age, and even more so in the age of an internet stripped (or almost) of applicable limits and sanctions. The individual is held back by the fear of lacking creativity, but the author McKenzie Wark seeks to reassure new creators and invites them to take hold of the new lessons of the contemporary world and of current arts such as video games. A stance likely to free the individual from the mere status of consumer, turning their activity into “tinkering”, the fruit of an engaged, collaborative community.
The hacker acts only in pursuit of ideas2. Their singularity certainly rests on coercive unity, but aligning their differences with their peers leads to an abstraction of their class and executive status. The challenge for the hacker and the modder is thus the unification of their assets, talents and work3.
Conclusion
The close collaboration between video games and cinema therefore plays a major role in the flourishing of a creative approach. New content, whether made official by a powerful company or the fruit of unaffiliated community work, takes shape as a work for which the degree of professionalism or the past prestige of its creators no longer matter at all. The industry addresses the public, from which more and more individuals emerge who want free and playful creations, and who in turn address an informed audience; finally, the industry gathers the ideas of these new creators to improve its next projects. A virtuous circle, not unfamiliar to other modern and digital media.
Bibliography
Books and articles
- V. Berry, « Une “cyberculture” : ludique, collaborative et paradoxale », MédiaMorphoses, no. 22, 2008, p. 55-61, DOI: 10.3406/memor.2008.2161
- A. Herbig and A. F. Herrmann, “Polymediated Narrative: The Case of the Supernatural Episode ‘Fan Fiction’”, vol. 10, 2016
- A. Herbig, A. F. Herrmann and A. W. Tyma, Beyond New Media: Discourse and Critique in a Polymediated Age, Lexington, 2015, DOI: 10.5040/9781666986594
- M. Wark, Un manifeste hacker, Paris, Éd. Criticalsecret, 2006, 496 p.
Filmography
- T. Miike (dir.), Ichi the Killer, 2001
- A. Kurosawa (dir.), Rashōmon, 1950
Video games
- Sucker Punch Productions, Ghost of Tsushima, version 2.15, 2020, directed by Nate Fox and Jason Connell
- Sucker Punch Productions, Ghost of Yōtei, 2025, directed by Nate Fox and Jason Connell
Notes
https://lexludica.com/en/articles/modding-making-cinema
