Ghost of Tsushima fans have helped raise $260k for repairs on the real island

Ghost of Tsushima fans have helped raise more than $260,000 to rebuild a shrine on the real Japanese island.

Yuichi Hirayama, a priest at Tsushima’s Watatsumi Shrine, launched a crowdfunding page in November to help rebuild a Torii gate that recently collapsed during a typhoon.

The crowdfunding effort concluded on Sunday with more than 540% of its 5,000,000 JPY ($47,500) goal raised. Over 2000 people contributed to the project, including many fans of Sucker Punch’s PlayStation game.

UPDATE MARCH 5, 2021: The real island of Tsushima has given a prestigious award to two senior members of the Ghost of Tsushima development team.

Game director Nate Fox and Creative director Jason Connell will become permanent tourism ambassadors of the city of Tsushima in Nagasaki, the island announced this week.

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ORIGINAL STORY CONTINUES: “We have received a great deal of support from the players of the Ghost of Tsushima game set in Tsushima, and I feel that it is God’s guidance,” Hirayama wrote on the crowdfunding page.

Watatsumi Shrine is situated in central Tsushima, dedicated to the deities Hikohohodemino Mikoto and Toyotamabime. Although the exact shrine does not feature in the Ghost of Tsushima game, players can visit many landmarks from the real island, as detailed by a tourism collaboration site.

The Shrine’s Twitter page often posts about Ghost of Tsushima to discuss its accuracy (or lack of) compared to the real island.

“I am very grateful for the support of so many people during a cramped life due to the coronavirus and the challenging economic situation,” it wrote.

Repair work is expected to begin in April and complete by August. The Shrine intends to engrave the names of those who have supported more than 10,000 yen ($94) on a stone monument near the site.

More Ghost of Tsushima

Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut PS5 review | Ghost of Tsushima PS4 save transfers | The real Ghost of Tsushima island

Ghost of Tsushima released in July 2020 and became an immediate success, breaking the PlayStation original IP launch record previously held by Horizon Zero Dawn.

The open-world action game sold through more than 2.4 million copies globally in its first three days of sales, according to Sony, which marked a new record for an original IP launch, but was some ways from matching the record set by established franchise The Last of Us Part 2.

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More Ghost of Tsushima is coming, a Sucker Punch job ad suggests

The open-world PS4 title broke PlayStation's original IP launch record this summer

In Japan, Ghost of Tsushima recorded the best launch week sales of any first-party PlayStation 4 game to date.

In October Tsushima was expanded with a new multiplayer mode, Ghost of Tsushima Legends, which allows players to partner up with friends to explore fantastical locations inspired by Japanese folk tales and mythology.

Sucker Punch looks likely to be working on more Ghost of Tsushima content, according to a recent job ad calling for a narrative designer who should have a “desire to write stories set in feudal Japan”.