Following up one of the most beloved new franchises of the last generation is no small task. Sucker Punch could’ve played it safe and given us another chapter of Jin’s story and called it a day. Instead, they took a risk. A new protagonist. A new setting. A new story set centuries after the Mongol invasion.
With Ghost of Yōtei, that risk pays off. This is a reinvention. A samurai epic that deepens the cinematic combat, expands the open-world design, and delivers a protagonist whose emotional arc cuts even deeper than Jin’s.
Ghost of Yōtei is a spiritual successor set in the unforgiving wilderness of Ezo, modern-day Hokkaido. Where Tsushima portrayed the order of feudal warfare, Yōtei feels like a samurai Western: lawless, brutal, and beautiful in equal measure. After more than 40 hours exploring the frozen valleys around Mount Yōtei, it’s clear—this is one of the year’s most immersive, most soulful open-world experiences. It is, essentially, a revenge story, but it becomes something far greater.
A Path Forged in Blood
Atsu, our new protagonist, carries a wound that defines her every step. Years ago, her family was slaughtered by the ruthless Yōtei Six, and she’s spent her life sharpening herself into the weapon that will end them.
Where Jin Sakai wrestled with the loss of honor, Atsu has none left to lose. She begins the game as the Onryō, the vengeful spirit. Her purpose is clear: track down six killers and make them pay. But what begins as revenge slowly becomes something far more human.
Through flashbacks and quiet moments, we see glimpses of who she was before the violence. A daughter, a sister, and someone capable of tenderness. The game makes you feel the weight of what was taken from her and, in doing so, makes every swing of her blade feel personal.
What surprised me most was how the story turns inward. Atsu isn’t fighting to become a monster in service of a cause. She’s fighting to remember what it means to care again. Her bond with her wolf companion could’ve been a gimmick, but it becomes the heart of the experience, a living reminder that she’s still capable of loyalty, of love, of protecting something instead of destroying it.
Atsu is scarred, angry, and deeply human. Her struggle to balance vengeance with compassion gives Ghost of Yōtei its soul. It’s a journey that cuts deep, exploring the true cost of revenge and the faintest hope of moving past it.
Big Sword Energy
The combat that made Tsushima such a joy is back, and Sucker Punch refined it in some really smart ways. Instead of Jin’s four combat stances, Atsu uses a weapon counter system that gives her access to multiple tools: katana, yari (spear), ōdachi (greatsword), and the kusarigama (chain-sickle). This changes everything. You’re constantly adapting, switching weapons mid-fight based on what’s in front of you.
There’s something deeply satisfying about charging into a bandit camp with what I can only describe as Big Sword Energy, switching from your katana to a massive, sweeping ōdachi strike that cleaves through multiple enemies at once. The moments where your wolf companion unexpectedly joins the chaos, lunging at throats and creating openings, never gets old.
The standoff system returns, and landing a perfect parry followed by a multi-kill streak is more satisfying than ever. The game rewards mastery. Learn the rhythms of each enemy type, understand when to dodge versus parry, and know which weapon counters which threat. On the higher difficulties, the game is unforgiving but completely fair. When you fall, it’s entirely on you.
Beyond the mechanics, there’s just something about the feel of combat here. After every tense duel, I’d find myself pausing to perform the blade-sheathing animation, watching Atsu stand there looking like an absolute badass before the blood spatter even hit the ground. That moment, that satisfaction of precision and style combined, that’s the heart of what makes the Ghost games special.
The expanded arsenal is great, but it did lead to some fumbling on my part. More than once, I hit the wrong input and pulled out my tanegashima matchlock rifle when I meant to switch to my spear. It’s definitely a skill issue that improves with practice, but a simpler toggle between melee sets and ranged weapons would’ve helped during those first few hours. Also, the vision mode for stealth, a core ability for playing as the Ghost, is locked behind a significant story mission early on. I wanted to embrace the stealth approach from the start, and having to wait felt like an odd choice.
Those minor gripes aside, the fighting in this game just feels damn good. Every strike, every parry, it all clicks in a way that kept me looking for fights instead of avoiding them.
The Lure of the Untamed Horizon
Moving the story to Ezo might be the smartest choice Sucker Punch has ever made. It’s a completely different world: wild, deadly, and breathtakingly beautiful. One moment, you’re riding through fields of wildflowers, and the next, you’re crossing a frozen tundra lit by the aurora borealis. The design feels less scripted than Tsushima. Instead of flooding your map with icons, the game trusts your curiosity to lead the way.
You’re encouraged to explore at your own pace. Follow clues. Scan the horizon with your spyglass. Let the Guiding Wind reveal secrets when you play a tune on your shamisen. Ghost of Yōtei is at its best when you have no destination at all, just galloping through an autumnal forest with the cinematic camera sweeping around you as the world streams by. You can set up camp anywhere, rest, craft ammo, or meet allies who find you along your journey. It’s a small touch, but it reinforces that feeling of being a wandering ronin carving a path across the frontier.
Fan favorites return. Fox dens, hot springs, and bamboo strikes are all here. And, yes, you can still pet the foxes. But the best surprise is how personal Atsu feels. Armor sets, masks, dyes, hairstyles, etc., every choice lets you shape her into the ronin you imagine.
There’s also a brilliant new upgrade system. When a weapon or armor piece is ready for improvement, a small icon appears beside it in your inventory. From there, you can fast-travel straight to the correct merchant. Or, better yet, you can summon that merchant directly to your campfire. No detours. No wasted time. It’s a simple, elegant fix to a problem that has haunted open-world games for years.
If there’s one thing that breaks the flow, it’s the climbing sections that gate key story moments. The first few are spectacular (scaling icy cliffs or threading narrow mountain paths feels cinematic). But by the fourth or fifth time, the thrill fades. They’re not hard, just repetitive, and they slow the story when it should be building momentum.
Making Your Fortune
Unlike Tsushima, where specific resource types drove most upgrades, Yōtei introduces a more robust economy. Money matters here. You need it to buy and upgrade ammunition, purchase unique armor dyes, and finance Atsu’s growing network of allies. You earn cash through bounty hunting, selling loot from bandit camps, and completing side missions.
What makes this system work is how it’s woven into progression without becoming a grind. Minor upgrades rely on scavenged materials (metal, wood, bamboo), stuff you pick up naturally while exploring. But major weapon and armor upgrades require both collectible resources and story progression. This keeps Atsu’s power level roughly in line with the difficulty of new regions, so you can’t just grind your way to god-tier equipment in the first act.
I found myself actually excited to hunt bounties because the money meant something. That’s rare in open-world games, where currency often becomes meaningless after the first few hours. Here, every coin matters. The system respects your time while still encouraging you to engage with the world’s violence.
The Soul of the Machine
Ghost of Yōtei is a technical showcase for the PlayStation 5. Across more than 40 hours of play, I didn’t experience a single crash or noticeable frame rate drop. That’s an impressive feat for a game of this scale. It looks stunning from every angle. Riding through a forest of golden ginkgo trees as sunlight filters through the canopy, or watching the aurora shimmer across the northern sky, there were countless moments that stopped me in my tracks.
But the real triumph is how Sucker Punch harnessed the DualSense controller. Built from the ground up for PS5, every interaction feels deliberate. The haptics are among the best I’ve experienced this generation. When you strum the shamisen, you can feel each string hum beneath your fingers. The adaptive triggers tighten as you draw a bow, then push back with satisfying resistance during a sword clash.
The stylistic modes deserve mention, too. Kurosawa Mode returns for that timeless black-and-white samurai aesthetic, joined by Miike Mode, a brutal, close-camera style that turns up the intensity, and Watanabe Mode, which pairs the action with chill, anachronistic beats. Together, they let you tailor the tone of your journey to your mood.
Sucker Punch poured immense care into every technical layer of this experience, and it shows. From its visual fidelity to the precision of its feedback, Ghost of Yōtei stands as one of the most polished, immersive showcases of the PS5’s capabilities.
The Path Forward
Ghost of Yōtei takes everything that made Ghost of Tsushima a masterpiece, the cinematic combat, the reverence for Japanese cinema, the breathtaking open world, and evolves it in meaningful ways. It gives us Atsu, a protagonist whose single-minded pursuit of vengeance becomes something far more complex and human. Her bond with her wolf, her fragile relationships across Ezo, her slow rediscovery of empathy, this is a character arc worth experiencing.
Yes, there are rough edges. The new weapon system takes practice, the vision mode unlock feels oddly gated, and the climbing segments drag in the middle act. But these are minor scars on an otherwise remarkable journey.
From the elegant quality-of-life touches to the brilliant DualSense immersion and the sheer majesty of the northern frontier, Ghost of Yōtei stands tall as one of the most unforgettable adventures of this generation. Sucker Punch took a risk changing protagonists and setting, and it pays off in full. This is a story that honors its lineage while forging its own legend.
For my money, this is the best samurai game ever made. Somewhere between the roar of the wind and the silence after a duel, I realized why this series matters: it’s not about vengeance, honor, or glory. It’s about compassion enduring even when the world burns. Ghost of Yōtei captures that spirit completely; it’s a technical marvel, an artistic triumph, and one of 2025’s defining games. Atsu’s journey will stay with you long after the snow settles.
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