Ghost of Tsushima: Can You Beat the Khan at the Beginning?

Ghost of Tsushima has a number of duels for players to partake in which come as close as you'll get to a boss fight in Sucker Punch Productions' game. The first of those is found extremely early on in Ghost of Tsushima and has players facing off against Khotun Khan, the leader of the invading Mongols who we first meet during the game's opening cinematic. Players are forced into a fight with him right as they get their bearings with the game's combat systems and start to feel comfortable with the mechanics only to be met with a scripted defeat.

But can you actually beat the Khan in this first fight? He's got huge advantages over Jin no matter what difficulty you're playing on. His weapon has tremendous range compared to your katana, his attacks come quickly and are less predictable than normal, he weaves unblockable attacks into the mix, and the narrow bridge you fight on make it impossible to capitalize on Jin's mobility. On top of all that, you don't have any of the unique weapons or abilities to use during this fight.

With all that stacked against you, there's no way you can win the fight against the Khan. You can land a few hits if you're quick and manage to stay alive for a while, but his massive health bar bears the weight of your attacks with ease. It's a scripted event that requires the player to lose so that they can continue their journey.

But even though the fight looks impossible, some games have implemented similar battles in the beginning that players can actually conquer with some skill. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, for example, allows players to "beat" the first boss during a similar series of events at the start, but the result is the same except for a slightly different cinematic.

We tried beating the Khan several times at the beginning just to make sure. There's some buildup to the fight where you work your way through fodder enemies and an unskippable cutscene though, so it's not exactly a quick task to repeat the fight over and over. During an interview with ComicBook.com about various Ghost of Tsushima topics, game director Nate Fox said Jin is meant to lose there to be humiliated and reminded of past failures.

The Khan is one of the game's constants you'll deal with later though, so don't worry about your first loss to him.

Ghost of Tsushima is now available for the PlayStation 4.