Ghost of Yotei directors talk open world philosophy and moving on from Jin Sakai

If Sucker Punch can pull it off, Ghost of Yotei won’t be just another open-world game.

Once again helmed by veterans Nate Fox and Jason Connell, the Ghost of Tsushima sequel is due out this October. Yotei follows new protagonist Atsu on a tale of revenge as she hunts down the Yotei Six, a group of warriors that have caused death and destruction across Japan.

According to Sucker Punch, the sequel will build on Tsushima’s cinematic storytelling, captivating visuals, and reverence for Japanese cinema. However, the ambition is for Yotei to evolve the open-world formula that has caused many games in the genre to wear thin over the last decade.

Watch VGC’s exclusive Ghost of Yotei video interview…

One thing that won’t be returning is Ghost of Tsushima protagonist, Jin Sakai. For its second samurai game, the Ghost franchise is saying goodbye to its protagonist and hello to a new era.

“We love Jin Sakai,” explained Nate Fox, in a recent interview with VGC (which you can watch in full via the video above). “We spent a lot of years bringing his story to life. But when we set out on the long road to creating a sequel, we wanted to make something that excited us all at Sucker Punch. We think that enthusiasm and love for building an origin story comes through for players being able to experience something very new as well.”

He continued: “Atsu’s story is very rich, and a lot of unexpected things happen, and part of it is getting to know these new characters. So, while we really love Jin Sakai and his story of letting go of his honor to become the ghost, we wanted to let players experience this new version of what it is to be a ghost in Feudal Japan.”

Fox was speaking to VGC days after Sucker Punch debuted the most substantial look yet at its next game. The State of Play presentation dove into what players will be doing as Atsu in the sequel, including an increased emphasis on discovery through exploration.

“As the creators of the last game, we played a ton of it,” said Connell. “As we went to create a new game, and we decided it was going to be set in Hokkaido, it only seemed fitting to also increase the way that we think about the freedom of the game.

“What does it feel like to explore? What are your options? How do we feed you your next objective? To us, it really felt like an evolutionary step for us to be able to think about what freedom means to the player and to allow some new ways in which you might uncover something that’s interesting for you.”

While Ghost of Tsushima was released to a warm critical reception and went on to be a sales hit for Sony, its release in 2020 coincided with the open-world genre being in a state of stagnation. Complaints about opening a map and seeing hundreds of question marks followed every open-world game, and Tsushima was no exception.

The sequel takes pains to move away from this style of gameplay and more towards an exploratory, player-driven story. While not diving headfirst into the FromSoftware approach of having little-to-no guidance, Yotei places a much higher emphasis on finding your own path.

“The thing that Jason and I love the most is that moment when you’re on your horse and you’re looking at this big, beautiful landscape,” explained Fox.

“And maybe the wind is telling you, if you would like to continue the story, go that way. But you see something out of the corner of your eye that catches your curiosity. And you say, you know what? I’m going to go check that out. That moment where the game’s not telling you really about where to go or what to do. It’s you. That’s the most beautiful thing about open-world games.”

While core players may welcome this approach, Ghost of Tsushima was a game that transcended the mainstream and attracted players who don’t typically engage with the genre. Sucker Punch says those new players will be catered for, too.

“The thing that Jason and I love the most is that moment when you’re on your horse and you’re looking at this big, beautiful landscape… something out of the corner of your eye that catches your curiosity.”

Connell tells us that the length of the game will be similar to the original, but the runtime will be filled with more varied activities and will heavily depend on the player. Sucker Punch is also keen to ensure that the game’s more open structure doesn’t take away from the narrative, a balance that Jason Connell explains is at the core of the game’s design philosophy.

“One of the things I love about the Ghost franchise is that there are a whole bunch of options to make it your experience. We have this approachable, samurai cinema-inspired game, and so the trick for us as developers is to create a game that provides that extra level of creative freedom we strive for, allowing players to enjoy it, while at the same time, we’re never going to abandon the structure of the story.

“It’s very difficult to have a story with no structure. You’re going to have a beginning, middle, and an end, so while Atsu’s journey is to hunt down the Yotei Six, by no means are we going to let you go and kill all six with no story structure. We value the story so much.”

Ghost of Tsushima was released just months before the release of the PlayStation 5. As a swansong for the PS4, alongside The Last of Us Part 2, the game showed off a mastery of hardware that few managed to replicate.

The game looked even better in its PS5 port that followed shortly after. Ghost of Yotei is Sucker Punch’s first full game designed exclusively for the PS5, and while Fox and Connell tell me the expected visual flair is a major focus, it’s the DualSense controller that’s sparked the most inspiration for the team.

“It was such an incredible experience making Ghost of Tsushima for the PlayStation 4 and then pretty quickly seeing how that game showed up on the PlayStation 5,” said Fox.

“The PlayStation 5 is, of course, an incredible piece of hardware, but let’s face it, this controller’s magnificent. I love the haptics. I love the way the touchpad works. Ghost of Yotei is built from the ground up to use the PlayStation 5 and to have those lightning-fast loads, and to be able to use the DualSense controller to its maximum effect.

“We learned a lot of lessons by seeing Ghost of Tsushima through the lens of that controller that we wouldn’t have had otherwise. So it gave us a head start on how to make Yotei as PS5-friendly as possible and really to come alive through that controller, which I adore. We could not have made this game without the PS5’s features, which we’re very happy to be making a game exclusively targeted for this controller.”

“It was such an incredible experience making Ghost of Tsushima for the PlayStation 4 and then pretty quickly seeing how that game showed up on the PlayStation 5”

The game will be PlayStation 5 Pro enhanced, but Sucker Punch isn’t currently sharing those details.

Ghost of Yotei will release only months after another massive open-world game set in Japan, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. The game, which was met with positive player and critical sentiment after a troubled development cycle, found itself at the center of a storm over its historical accuracy. We asked if that’s something Sucker Punch worries about, and how it balances creative license with reality.

“Our game is very inspired by history, but we are not making a stone-for-stone recreation of Hokkaido in 1603,” said Fox.

“Our game is a work of fiction. However, we do want to make the world feel authentic and be very respectful to the cultures that existed there. Thankfully, we are a part of Sony. So we have a lot of colleagues in Tokyo who really help us out, who give us a lot of guidance.

“And on top of that, because this game is set in Hokkaido, we have people who help us best represent the Ainu culture. We want to be as faithful as we can to do right by this group of people who are not often portrayed in video games. So we have these guides that review our game, review scripts to make sure that we’re doing right by the groups that we’re portraying inside of this game, that while fiction, it has a feeling of authenticity to it.”

Both Nate Fox and Jason Connell were made permanent tourism ambassadors of the city of Tsushima following the popularity of the first game. The island of Tsushima even sells exclusive merchandise based on the game. In January 2021, the popularity of the game also led to fans helping raise more than $260,000 to rebuild a shrine on the real island.

Has the pressure to represent and respect the culture accurately increased since the real-life reaction to the first game?

“I think it’s always there,” said Connell. “I think for us, we want to make a piece of entertainment that can be enjoyed by the whole world. That’s something that is a big goal for us, which is built on our love for samurai cinema that we’ve shared. Nate and I both share, and many people in our studio share, and the only way to do that, as proved by Tsushima and now with Yotei, is surrounding ourselves with advisors who understand that we’re making entertainment that is respectful and thoughtful.

“We’re taking historical or geographical elements from those regions or that period and bringing them forward to players of the whole world to experience. And again, the only way to do that is by, you know, having a multitude of different types of advisors to sort of guide us on our journey.”

Ghost of Yotei will be released exclusively for PS5 on October 2.