‘It’s been an honor’: Sucker Punch’s Brian Fleming and lead Erika Ishii reflect on Ghost of Yotei
Studio head Brian Fleming and lead actor Erika Ishii on the challenges of building PlayStation’s big sequel
Brian Fleming is feeling relaxed. The Sucker Punch co-founder is speaking to me at Tokyo Game Show, days ahead of the release of Ghost of Yotei – PlayStation’s biggest release of the year, and the InFamous studio’s most-anticipated game to date.
Yotei is the sequel to the 13-million selling Ghost of Tsushima, an open-world samurai epic set in feudal Japan, which is soon to be turned into a Hollywood movie directed by John Wick’s Chad Stahelski, and an anime series with Crunchyroll. The pressure is on to deliver a second time, then, and with a new protagonist, a different setting, and a rethought, freeform structure, Sucker Punch can’t be accused of playing it safe.
At the time of our interview, media impressions had only recently been published for Yotei, including VGC’s own 5/5 Ghost of Yotei review. The broad is hugely positive: Yotei marks Sucker Punch’s highest Metacritic score (87) since Sly 2 more than 20 years ago. But even with some outlets publishing more critical assessments, studio head Fleming explained to me why he wasn’t feeling nervous in the run-up to release.
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“This is the first game that I feel like I was very much at peace before the reviews came out, and I’m super pleased for the team,” he said. “I was at peace beforehand. It’s taken me 30 years to get to the place where I was confident a game was good. Before, I didn’t know if it was great or not. And we’ll find out on the second when players get it.
“We’re not as smart as the best reviews, and we’re not as dumb as the worst reviews. It’ll be fine. I was very calm about it. The team’s very excited. But I’ve finally gotten to the place where I can be proud of the game and not get totally worked up about the reviews. It’s part of the process and I deeply appreciate it, but I’m very much at peace.”
Fleming’s zen-like, composed nature at TGS, he later explained, is partly thanks to a pre-show trip to the real island of Tsushima, where the original Ghost is set. Tsushima has experienced a tourism boom since the PlayStation game launched in 2020. It now runs tours based on the game, sells merchandise, and has even made Sucker Punch’s creative directors permanent tourist ambassadors. In 2021, the popularity of the game led to fans helping raise more than $260,000 to rebuild a shrine on the island.
“I was there a week ago and spent the day with a lot of the tourism folks, who were staying in a hotel named Hotel Jin – which is not an accident,” Fleming said. “You asked me at the start how I was feeling, and I said I was at peace, and I think part of that was that visit.
“I was [initially] wrapped around the axle on a few of the reviews, and I realised that our Metacritic score and those reviews don’t affect those people at all. What really affected them was the tourists from the whole world [who visited Tsushima]. Our tour guide brought tourists from UAE and Germany up to Kaneda Castle, which is mind-blowing, right? These people came all this way to do that.
“It’s just so fulfilling to feel that way and say, wow, this really touched people, both the travellers and people’s lives there. We met a mom from the island sitting on a plane going back to Fukuoka from Tsushima, who realized who we are. It was so exciting. And you’re like, man, this is just crazy. Like, how did this happen for us?
“It was incredibly fulfilling. We didn’t anticipate any of that. The fans fixed the shrine, this beautiful shrine that I got to go visit. And the old one is still there. It’s completely amazing. And the Tsushima fans raised money for that shrine. Will the same thing happen with YoteI? I’m not sure, but I’m excited for the game to launch and for those stories to be in.”
‘Hard to walk away’ from Tsushima and Jin Sakai
With such a meaningful connection to the real Tsushima, Fleming said it was, understandably, a tough decision to leave the island behind with the game’s PS5 sequel. Even more challenging, he claimed, was the Sucker Punch’s choice to switch protagonists from the original’s fan-favourite samurai, Jin Sakai, who’s played by actor Daisuke Tsuji.
The lead character of Ghost of Yotei is instead a woman named Atsu, who’s out for revenge against the deadly members of the Yotei Six. The decision to change time periods (Yotei takes place some 329 years after Tsushima) and protagonist, according to Fleming, was to establish the Ghost franchise as a series about legendary individuals who have significant impacts on their time.
Sucker Punch has a recent preference for putting original protagonists in its games. Its last four releases, including two InFamous sequels, have each included new leads. As noted by Game File, it’s a decision that stems back to PS3’s InFamous 2, which the studio felt was a “hard landing” for those who hadn’t played the first game.
'1,400 day one improvements'
According to Fleming, over 1,000 improvements are included in Ghost of Yotei’s day one patch, which he said is an example of its prowess at finishing and launching games.
“Even inside Sony, the studios are very distinct,” he said. “We treasure our relationship with Insomniac and Naughty Dog, and we all have really different skills. But I do think one of our strengths is that we’re really good at the last six months, especially the last three. I think we make really good decisions.”
He added: “If you want to see it, the build that you guys did the press on, we call that the Day Zero build. And the Day One build is the one that the players will get. Play them back-to-back. That’s four weeks, right? Play them. You will be shocked at how much better the day one is.
“There are something like 1,400 individual improvements between those two. And you can see, and you can feel the difference between those two builds. Really, it’s shocking how different they are. If you ever want to peek into the development process, at least at our studio, play those two builds.”
“It was hard to walk away from Tsushima. But it was really hard to walk away from Daisuke Tsuji,” Fleming explained. “The guy was super important to what we did and on a personal level, that was really hard. And yet, we believe so much in origin stories.”
Fleming explained that Sucker Punch believes games with origin stories have the benefit of offering all types of players a clean slate. “We talk a lot about trying to make the experience that the player on the sticks, the person holding the controller is having, being the same as the experience that the character is having, being a good thing. And that happens in origin stories,” he said.
“And so we really like that, to the point where we were willing to move on from Jin Sakai, which I think disappointed a lot of players who really enjoyed that character. And I totally understand that frustration.
“But I do think the story here is super interesting. I think we’re in a different time. It affords you some things that you can’t do if you’re just saying, ‘Oh, let’s do the second invasion’, which everyone probably thought that’s what we were going to do. ‘Wow, there’s a second invasion seven years later’. But not for us.”
The concept for Atsu originated from Japanese mythology, specifically the Onryo, a vengeful spirit that returns from the dead, often in the form of a woman. Sucker Punch’s aim was to create a protagonist that felt distinct from Jin, and for that, they turned to an actor who understood the original Ghost better than most – because they’d put over 100 hours into it.
Erika Ishii, a former streamer and content creator who’s appeared in games such as Destiny 2, Apex Legends, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard, told VGC that landing the role in Yotei was a dream come true for somebody who used to attend Sony’s PlayStation Experience events as a fan.
“I went to PlayStation Experience in the first year and snuck into E3 with a badge that wasn’t mine,” Ishii said. “I used to go to GDC and hand out my card and say like, ‘hey, can I play your game, or can I interview you? Also, I’m a voice actor’… It feels like a Cinderella story to have gone from a fan to getting to create these games.”
Ishii recalled their first audition for Yotei, and guessing the true identity of the title even before it was disclosed to actors. Erika believes it’s this passion for the original Ghost game that ultimately landed them the role as Atsu.
“When I got the audition, it was of course codenamed, and it was a fake scene,” they said. “I had a suspicion of what it was, but you just have to make a strong choice and hope for the best.
“When I got a callback, I was with a bunch of people sitting at a table, and they asked, ‘do you have any questions?’ And I said, ‘is this the second Ghost of Tsushima?’ They had a quick and hurried discussion with each other before admitting that, yes, something like that. And I was like, ‘oh good, because I was wondering how much Kurosawa feel you wanted’.
“I went to PlayStation Experience in the first year and snuck into E3 with a badge that wasn’t mine… It feels like a Cinderella story to have gone from a fan to getting to create these games.”
“I think that is a huge piece of why I booked this role, honestly. I think early on, just being a fan of the first one, and being a gamer… it was a shortcut for us to understand each other. And so, it feels surreal. After over 100 hours in Tsushima, to suddenly get the opportunity to take up the title of the Ghost has just been an honor.”
Fleming told VGC Ishii’s enthusiasm for the project was “unbounded”, which he said allowed Sucker Punch to work closely with the actor to define a character that wasn’t going to be simply “Jin part two”.
According to Ishii, Yotei was the first time they’d been able to work so closely with a development team on a role, even collaborating with writers at an early stage on what the Atsu character should be. Ishii’s deep knowledge of Tsushima and video games in general also proved useful during the production process, they said.
“I think since I’d played the game and I’m a gamer, I could immediately understand the different contexts for a lot of the exposition, because we want to tell the story of Atsu and her journey, but sometimes it has to be told in very specific physical circumstances, like riding on a horse or climbing the mountain, and I think that just not having to explain to me what the contexts were helpful.
“Also, understanding the bifurcation of choices in the game was really helpful for me in understanding where things were in the chronology, if that makes sense. Atsu has a character arc that is very pronounced throughout the whole game, but there are parts of the game that we filmed that could go anywhere during that journey, so you have to kind of keep that in mind, and I think that having that gamer brain of like, okay, this happens then, but it could also happen at this time, really, you know, I think made my job easier as an actor.”
Creating a more free-form story was Sucker Punch’s ‘biggest challenge’
Ghost of Yotei builds on Tsushima’s cinematic storytelling and stylish battles, but Sucker Punch said it’s the greater emphasis on player freedom, referenced by Ishii, that is one of the sequel’s most significant additions to the open world formula of the original.
In Yotei, players can tackle story objectives in different orders, while more authored side content ties cinematically into the main story. This reduces the amount of map icon bloat that’s often negatively associated with the genre, while empowering players to explore the game world at their own pace.
Reflecting on Yotei’s development, Brian Fleming said that breaking away from the linear formula of Tsushima was Sucker Punch’s biggest challenge.
'Sony is our cultural consultant'
Another open-world game set in historical Japan, Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, found itself at the center of a storm over its historical accuracy when it released earlier this year. Sucker Punch’s studio discussed the advantages of creating Yotei within a corporation headquartered in Japan.
“We try to remind ourselves all the time that we can’t see the problems. We know they’re there, and you just can’t see them. And so that requires time. It really does. We can find the technical problems. We have a process. But we’re not going to find a cultural problem. We just don’t have the vision. The field of view isn’t wide enough for us to see that.
“And so the only strategy that makes any sense is to find people you trust with whom you can collaborate. And you have to have enough time to let that actually work. Because you’re going to get it wrong the first time, guarantee. You’re 99% of the time going to get it wrong the second time. And if you’re lucky, you’ll get it right the third time. And that takes time. There’s no fast way.”
He continued: “The fact that we’re part of Sony, which is a team that, for most projects, is the localization team. For us, they’re like localization, cultural consultants, travel partners. They’re everything to us. So it’s incredibly fortunate that we have that. It’s a built-in trust, right? We’ve worked on games that are superhero games with them. So now it’s this chance to do something much richer.
“They’re our friends already, so that’s great. And then, of course, you have to supplement that with historians or even cultural consultants. There’s a whole family that we’ve been working with, and they’ve taken us scavenging and all kinds of things that are materialized in the game in different ways. But they had to review the game too, right? We had to make videos and materials for them to look at and they would give notes.”
“When I think about development [of Yotei], I think the most interesting set of problems came from the structural change to the game. Tsushima was kind of a straight line, from rescuing Lord Shimura all the way to the ending, and the side content was kind of off that. The main thrust really was both all the narrative and all the really important progression of the game. Really, you learn all the core skills and everything on the golden path.
“The idea for Yotei was like, what if we didn’t do that? What if we took all the key progression stuff and we said, well, there’s a sensei in the mountains. You can go find him any time you want. And we were like, what if we really did that? There’s a lot of reward for playing the golden path, which is you get the narrative, you get Atsu’s story. And what if we took all or most of the other progression rewards and we said, hey, those are just out in the world. And will that work?”
This seemingly simple idea caused problems for Ghost of Yotei’s development team, Fleming said, as they battled to solve the logistical problems that come with an open-world story that can be experienced in countless combinations, but it resulted in an open-world that feels different from Tsushima – especially for players who aren’t in a hurry.
“It’s one of the reasons we worked hard to get you a build three weeks before the deadline. Because if all you’re doing is rushing the golden path to get your review written, the interesting parts of the game are hard to see at that velocity. And so I hope, and it seems like many of the reviewers actually did have enough time to really go wide.”
Fleming said Sucker Punch is known inside of PlayStation for its ability to deliver in the final six months of development – Yotei’s day one patch, he said, contains 1,400 improvements over the version reviewers played just weeks ago (“you will be shocked”).
However, perhaps the studio’s most unique characteristic – outside of Japan, at least – is its determination to stay small by triple-A standards, at just a few hundred employees. According to the studio head, this has allowed it to maintain its culture and retain its employees.
“Our median tenure might be the highest of all the non-Japanese studios,” he said. “In the Japanese studios, the culture around hiring is a little different. But I believe we have the highest median tenure [outside of Japan].
“And again, I’m not pounding my chest. I just think it’s part of this whole ecosystem that we’ve tried to build. We did not want to be big. Even during the Sly 1 timeframe, I remember there were conversations like, ‘if we’re ever bigger than 40 people, the company will explode’. And that felt like gospel at the time.
“But the reality is, you learn, and you build a management team and a leadership group that can handle, ‘hey, that guy’s really special. Maybe he can run part of it’. And ‘wow, we never had a recruiter before’… There’s a lot of little steps that it takes to be where we are. But you’re right that our bias has always been [to stay small].”
“We did not want to be big. Even during the Sly 1 timeframe, I remember there were conversations like, ‘if we’re ever bigger than 40 people, the company will explode’. And that felt like gospel at the time”
In the seven years between Sly Cooper and the first InFamous, Sucker Punch went from developing a game in a year, to needing to dedicate double or triple that amount of time. Faced with the decision to expand, or spend longer building its games, the studio didn’t hesitate to opt for the latter.
“The decision was to grow a little bit and take two years [building InFamous], or we could have the same amount of people, but do it over three years. That was like the world’s easiest decision for us: give us less headcount, and let us work on it for three years.”
He explained: “This is just what we are. We haven’t been blessed with Miyamoto or somebody who has these fully formed visions that come out. We’re a team that kind of knows where we want to go, but it takes a little while to get there. We believe in iteration. And so being small is an asset, if that’s your strength. Because it gives you more time, right? Because you know that the budget is the ultimate thing.”
Sucker Punch will remain a single-project studio
As Sucker Punch approaches its 30th anniversary, that culture of staying small is what will likely present its next big challenge. As other veteran studios, such as Rare, Blizzard, or Capcom, have experienced with their own major milestones, creating beloved IP like Sly, InFamous, and now Ghost brings with it multiple generations of fans, each with their own expectations and demands for what you should work on next.
'Life can be upsetting'
Atsu’s journey in Ghost of Yotei contains upsetting scenes, mixed with moments of great levity. Erika Ishii said they were able to project some of their own background on to the character when filming these sequences.
“Well, life can be very upsetting, but I think that we move through the world with humor in order to survive, and I think that that is part of who Atsu is and how she copes. And also, I think, we see glimpses of it as a child. She’s funny and playful, and I wonder what, if it could have been different for her, if she hadn’t had this traumatic experience.”
They added: “I think, as an actor, it’s a gift to have a character who’s so well-rounded in the writing, and with my own background in comedy, it feels good to break up, because we don’t focus completely on any one thing at any one time as humans. We contain multitudes, and Atsu is written that way. I was just fortunate enough to get to play that out.”
Ishii herself, sadly and all too predictably, became a target for homophobic and transphobic abuse in the wake of Yotei’s announcement. Many fans online have asked if Ishii has been supported during this process, so we put this to the actor.
“Tell them thank you, that’s so sweet of them. I got to make incredible art with, again, some of the best in the world, and people who I admired in this industry, and fellow gamers are so excited. That is what I do it for, honestly. I feel like the luckiest fan in the world. So yeah, I’m doing pretty great now, thank you.”
Fleming claimed that diversity of expectations is something it also faces internally, as well as from its fans. “At 30 years, we now have employees who are kids of former employees. We have employees who weren’t born when the studio was founded,” he said.
“And you also have had enough changes from Sly, to InFamous, to Ghost that part of those changes, when they happen, is that it means not just you’re walking away from Tsushima, and not just that you’re walking away from the actors in Tsushima, but you’re walking away from employees who’ve been a part of the studio for the last decade, because they don’t want to do a game set in a historical setting.”
Next, the studio needs to deliver multiplayer add-on Ghost of Yotei: Legends, but beyond that, it sounds like it’s anyone’s guess. Sucker Punch has long been open about its determination to stay small, which means that its decisions for future projects are very careful and deliberate.
“The truth is that whatever we do next, whether it’s continuing Ghost or going back to Sly, the decision is really more limited by, again, our cherishing of focus and time to iterate, which means that we really can only do one thing at a time. If we were good at juggling four projects, yeah, we’d have a remaster, and let’s go do one of those, and one of those, and do some fan request, that would be really popular.
“But we only get to do one thing. So it kind of has to be your best idea, right? And that’s really clarifying. It’s not like there aren’t 15 good ideas. But you only get to do one. And by the way, you only get to do one about every five years. So that choice is really important. I mean, that is choosing your college and your major every five years… that’s a really big decision, so you better think carefully about it.”
