"I think player choice in this game will mean something very different than other games we've made in the past," explained art director Jason Connell. "We really want you to have the choice of, 'Hey, that cool bamboo forest over there, I really want to check it out. I want to head in that direction and I want to see what it is.' There's no waypoint. There's no thing that says 'Go here and look at this bamboo forest'. We just, hopefully, are presenting something that is beautiful and exotic, that's different than the current place you might be in. That'll come as a world choice. Where do I want to go?"

"In this game, we let you explore what it is to be a samurai in this enormous landscape of medieval Japan," said Fox.