Ghost of Tsushima: Legends allows for matchmaking in its Story mode and Survival activities, giving players the ability to enjoy its multiplayer content without needing to have a friend, or friends, at the ready. In only a little over a week, however, Ghost of Tsushima: Legends will be getting a new activity in the form of a raid event called the Tale of Iyo, which, according to Sucker Punch, will not support matchmaking, so players will need to have teams prepared beforehand.
Sucker Punch announced the news in its latest blog post, which states that the Tale of Iyo will require players to have a four-person team already prepared before it allows them to enter. The developer indirectly states that matchmaking won't be possible because of how challenging the raid will be. At a bare minimum, it wants players to be at Ki level 100 before they even think of attempting it.
Anyone familiar with raids in video games probably saw this coming. Raids are end-game content meant to test the limits of a multiplayer team. They require a level of coordination and trust that teams built through matchmaking generally don't have. That's not to say that beating a raid with a matchmade team is impossible, just that it's much more difficult to pull off, and the possibility of unfamiliar, short-tempered teammates souring the activity is high considering how much stress is usually involved.
Still, the Tale of Iyo's lack of matchmaking doesn't mean that those without a buddy on hand won't be able to participate. Players can scout out people to play with through other activities that do support matchmaking, such as the mentioned Story and Survival modes. It'll require a little social interaction, which is unfortunate, but if players get along well enough and make their intentions known, they should be able to build their own Raid team.
Sucker Punch will start laying the groundwork for players to prepare for the Tale of Iyo soon. On Friday, the developer will introduce some updates for Ghost of Tsushima: Legends that will implement Weekly Challenges into the game. These challenges will place modifiers on Story and Survival missions, making it so that players can only tackle them in Nightmare Mode. Should players manage to complete these tasks, they'll earn armor that will already be at the maximum KI level. So it's certainly worth the effort if they want to enter the raids as prepared as possible.
Ghost of Tsushima: Legends is on PS4.
Source: Sucker Punch