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Ghost of Tsushima: How to Get the Bow

If you want to be a deadly archer, you'll need to find a good bow and arrow. We'll show you how to get one as early as possible in the game, as well as how to get the more powerful longbow.

You'll begin Ghost of Tsushima with only your sword, so it won't be long before you'll need to find your very own bow and arrows. In this guide we'll go over how to get the bow and arrows, how to upgrade them, and how to get a better bow later on.

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How to Get the Bow in Ghost of Tsushima

To get the bow and arrows in Ghost of Tsushima you'll need to first complete the tutorial section with Yuna and access the open world for the first time, where you'll be able to traverse Tsushima and discover multiple missions opening up, giving you all kind of options as where to go next. You'll want to check your map and make your way to the Tale in Hiyoshi entitled "The Tale of Sensei Ishikawa". This is a brief quest in which you'll meet Ishikawa, get the half bow, and get a long tutorial on how the bow functions. Once the quest is over, you'll be able to keep the bow and use it in further combat.

The half bow can be used to kill from a distance and trigger certain dangerous objects, such as hornet nests and gunpowder barrels. | Joel Franey/USG, Sucker Punch Productions/Sony

If you want all the guides you'd ever need on Ghost of Tsushima, why not check out our full Guides Hub here? Whether it's bosses, collectibles or getting the best armor and weapons, we've got everything you'll need to liberate Tsushima here.

How to Get the Longbow

There's actually a second bow you can get, the larger longbow, unlocked as part of the Mythic Tale, "The Curse of Uchitsune." We've laid out how to find that quest here and what the advantages and disadvantages of it are, but to summarize, the longbow is a more powerful form of bow that can hit more distant targets.

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How to Upgrade the Bow

If you want to make your bow more powerful, you'll need to find a bowyer, a special kind of merchant who can enhance all your bow's stats for a price. Most major towns and villages have a bowyer (marked by a symbol above their head of two crossed arrows), and they'll require increased amounts of supplies, bamboo, yew wood and wax wood each time you get an upgrade. Both the half bow and longbow can be upgraded in this manner.

If we hit the mark on that guide, why not check out some more Tsushima content here at USG? We've got Mike's review of the game right here, or take a shot and listen to our early thoughts about the game on Axe of the Blood God.

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