First of all, Ubi can go and fuck themselves with their pos Ubi Connect which is not even working for me now unless I'll use VPN - WTF?! It worked just fine a day ago or so without VPN! And yes, you heard it right, Ubi Connect is still in the Steam version of the game, it's just that you don't need to install it cuz it's embedded like GFWL was on Steam in GFWL games. I can't tell you enough how much I hate this pos! Why can't you do like EA and just get rid of it on Steam altogether?
Back to actual game though. I've played around ~3,5 hrs, Naoe just recovered and I can do whatever. Good lord is this game looks a-fuckin'-mazin':
The draw distance is insane (but I've seen a few bugs related to it, which I hope will be fixed) and just the sheer complexity of any given frame is astounding. The world feels alive, the wind simulation is great, there's all sorts of things flying around, the lighting is god-like and at night it's even more impressive cuz light sources cast shadows, illuminating the surrounding area etc. Like, I've almost zero complaints about the visuals and I'm playing @1440 with DLSS Quality (77% of native) with 99% of settings at max quality except RT which is at Very High, both RTGI and reflections enabled. It's insane what DLSS4 can do with the new transformer mode, you can't even tell that you're playing at 77% of 1440p cuz the image is so sharp and stable 100% of the time and there's no ghosting (at least I haven't seen it). Moreover, it's so cool that you can choose to have all characters in the game use a hair strand feature and not just the main characters, but I'm playing at a locked 30 FPS and during some close ups it drops to 23-24FPS, so it has a massive FPS impact in combination with RTGI.
Now, about everything else. It's just mind-blowing how good Naoe's story and stuff is in comparison to the pathetic introduction of Yasuke, it's just unbelievable and you can tell right away who the real main character is. I just can't imagine myself to care about Yasuke let alone play as him more than I have to and when I don't have a choice. Moreover, Naoe's introduction and everything before she recovers and you can move on with the story, kills absolutely everything in Ghost of Tsushima in an instant. I'd say it's a bit short and probably could've used at least one more hour in the flashback to get to know the father and other people more, as well as Naoe herself before everything gone to shit, but it gets the job done and I'm sure it was made this way to let you get to the open world part and meat of the game faster. But even with all this in mind, the Ghost of Tsushima simply didn't have a chance.
The stealth is insanely good and I haven't even seen much of it cuz there's plenty of things you can't do at the start of the game even and based on the first gameplay videos from last year. Obviously I'm playing at the max difficulty for both combat and stealth cuz it's the way it meant to be played. Anyway, stealth is great and the best in the series to date. As for the combat. I need to get used to it, to deflect attacks and all that and just more time is needed to understand how it works and how to get good at it, but first impression is possitive, I'd say it's much better that in any AC game released since Origins. Can't wait to play more, but my electricity bill will be ginormous this month cuz of 3080Ti 300+ Watt usage at full load
