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Second act

Sucker Punch developer is known for games like Sly Cooper and Infamous series. Not to mention Ghost of Tsushima that is their biggest game ever. It sold over 13 million copies and won countless of awards, including Game Of The Year. That is the biggest award any video game could win. Ghost of Yōtei is Sucker Punch’s newest entry and it follows the same kind of setting and story as Ghost of Tsushima. I did play Ghost of Tsushima through and I enjoyed the game tremendously. It was vast, the plot well-told and gameplay was well-designed. How will Ghost of Yōtei follow that up?

I played Ghost of Yōtei through using PS5 Pro and Ray Tracing Pro graphical settings.

Plot

The story follows a lone mercenary named Atsu. Seeking for revenge, she travels through the beautiful landscapes of northern 1600s Japan (329 years after the events of Tsushima), hunting those who killed her family many years earlier. Called the Yōtei Six. The story happening around Mount Yōtei in Ezo that is today’s Hokkaido area.

The plot was told very movie-like. It slowly introduced characters, new areas and enemies. It had ups and downs and some twist. I was intrigued about the main character Atsu and her road of bloody vengeance. She was somewhat fully-fledged but to be honest she felt little bit one note. What gave the story more depth was ability to see past events and play them through. Those were Atsu’s childhood memories and they can be accessed on certain moments in the game.

Gameplay, controls, audio and visuals

Ghost of Yōtei is third-person action-adventure game. It has exploration, stealth and sword fighting. Weapons included such as katana, dual katana, arquebus (a firearm), bow and grappling hook. Players can choose which order they go after the Yōtei Six. First trying to find out their whereabouts. Doing missions and talking/helping people will reveal little by little where the members of Yōtei Six are. I did find this very positive addition that the game didn’t force me to go one straight line from start to finish, but let me have my own freedom to choose.

Talking about freedom. Ghost of Yōtei has vast plains and lots of secrets to be discovered. I don’t recommend at all for players to just go from one point to the next without inspecting the areas more closely. As Atsu can upgrade her stats, they are done by going on hot srpings (that will increase the health meter) or finding altars (the locations of them can be bought from a map maker) that will grant one wish to upgrade things like new moves. There is no exp in the game so collecting materials to upgrade weapons and finding these secrets spots are crucial.

Atsu also has another animal friend besides the horse. A wolf that can come help her in need, the wolf only comes to help her in certain fighting situations. Ther wolf’s stats and abilities can be upgraded as well.

Controlling Atsu was smooth and fighting the enemies was good. Atsu can do different moves from light attack to strong one, standoff move, parrying and dodging. What comes to the little nice details of the game were the touchpad and motion controller inputs that happened in situations like forging, cooking and starting a fire.

Ghost of Yōtei is very movie-like at some aspects and the sound is one of them. The music was beautiful to listen and Atsu can play shamisen (an old Japanese guitar-like instrument) that was rather relaxing to listen to. The voice acting was done nicely and the game can be played on different voice languages. Text can also be changed on various languages. I recommend to play this using Japanese audio with text and subtitles in your preferred language.

Graphically the game looks beautiful, detailed and alive. Yeah, maybe the facial animations could’ve been more life-like and some other details better here and there. But still I think the game looks nice. The light and shadows, and especially ray tracing looks extremely good. Since I played this using PS5 Pro there were many options for the graphics and I chose Ray Tracing Pro (enables higher-quality lighting, 60fps at an intermediate resolution. Only available on PS5 Pro). Other options were Quality (target 30fps with higher resolution), Performance (target 60fps on lower resolution) and Ray Tracing (higher-quality lighting and 30fps with intermediate resolution).

The final slice

Ghost of Yōtei is extremely good second act in the Ghost of series. It allows players to choose their own path to follow in the hunt of the Yōtei Six. Well-written story keeps players interested in Atsu’s personal vengeance. Even though I knew how the story is likely going to end in the beginning, it was still nice to see it through. Visually it looks beautiful with all the ray tracing’s lights and shadows. I played this through leisurely in about 20 hours and I did enjoy my time with it. I simply do recommend Ghost of Yōtei to anyone who enjoys these types of games.

Ghost of Yōtei is only available on PS5 (reviewed using PS5 Pro).

(Review copy kindly provided by the publisher)

SCORE:

5/5

“I was intrigued about the main character Atsu and her road of bloody vengeance”

RELEASE DATE: October 2, 2025
GENRE: Action
DEVELOPER: Sucker Punch
PUBLISHER: Sony
PLATFORMS: PS5 (reviewed on PS5 Pro)

 

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