Ghost of Yotei review: Sucker Punch delivers on the promise of Tsushima with a touching samurai epic

Ghost of Tsushima always felt like it was late to the party. While the game sold extremely well, and was loved by not only fans but also the people of the Japanese island it portrayed, it was a decidedly mid-2010s open world game, releasing at the peak of open world fatigue.

That – along with chanted criticism about 100 fox dens and endless hot springs – clearly informed Ghost of Yotei, and while some of the echoes of open-world games of the past linger, Sucker Punch’s samurai sequel is a stronger game in every department.

Ghost of Yotei explodes into life with a level of pace and expediency that is so lacking from games of its scale. You are Atsu. Your family has been slaughtered by the Yotei Six. You are instantly on the hunt. This isn’t the story of how Atsu became the Ghost; she’s already a self-trained killer. The game’s opening sequence is one of the strongest in years, and is a clever, knowing juxtaposition to the first game’s opening. Jin’s battle was against an army, Atsu’s is personal.

The game’s main quest sees Atsu going after the Yotei Six, six deadly killers spread across the map. While the game presents some non-linearity to how you tackle the Yotei Six, this freedom isn’t really there. While you can choose which of the first two you go after first, this is not an Assassin’s Creed-style list of targets for you to pick at whenever you want.

While this level of freedom may have been interesting, the extended questlines that lead to each of the Yotei Six are teeming with great characters and stellar performances.

Each of these quests is tied to a region, and often tied to a new weapon, which you can choose to add to your arsenal or ignore completely. These long chains of missions hunting down the Yotei Six are fun, but at times, they feel like they go on for one or two missions too long. This, unfortunately, slows down a lot of the pacing and urgency the game kicks off with, and doesn’t quite wrestle back.

The regions are also populated with authored side content that ranges from significant side content like a long map-spanning quest to hunt down an unkillable dueling master, to smaller things like camps that can be taken down. Camps, bamboo strikes, fox dens, hot springs, and more are still here, there are just far, far less of them.

Camps, for example, tie in to a final big side quest with the sensei who gave you that region’s melee weapon. Wolf dens have their own storyline that gives Atsu access to new abilities. Gaining skill points in the game is tied to finding shrines. There’s a reason to do everything. Whether that reason is enough for a player to take time out to do those things will be up to that person, but at the very least, Yotei makes things much easier for completionists.

An in-game cartographer will also sell you maps to notable locations such as altars and hot springs. A passerby will occasionally stop you and point you in the direction of a bandit camp. It’s a more natural, if still very video game way of populating an open world map.

Ghost of Yotei’s combat is similar to the first games, but instead of various stances that correspond to enemy weapons, Atsu now has access to multiple melee weapons via completing side quests. These weapons don’t appear to be mandatory, and can be acquired whenever the player wants, but they do make fighting that region’s enemies far easier. While the new weapons are fun, the game’s combat is at its best when it’s one vs one with a katana.

All of this is in aid of Atsu’s story. Erika Ishii’s performance is stellar, and in Atsu, they’ve created a lasting modern PlayStation icon. Ishii’s ability to convey to slightest flickers of doubt and rage across their performance is incredible, aided of course by the ridiculous visuals and performance capture.

Astu’s tale of revenge and bloodlust isn’t anything revolutionary from a storytelling perspective, but it’s the skill with which it’s executed that had us so hooked.

The game’s side characters are also excellent, with the story of the Kitsune being a particular highlight. The game’s great writing extends throughout even smaller content like bounties. In other games, bounties like these could be so inconsequential as to be procedurally generated, but in Ghost of Yotei, there’s often harrowing, one-shot stories tied to them.

The Yotei Six themselves don’t get as much time to develop as we’d have liked, despite the length of their missions. Their status as ruthless murderers is well established, and the Kitsune’s storyline gets adequate time to develop; the others feel slightly undercooked.

Ghost of Yotei’s presentation is outstanding. It will come as no surprise to anyone who played the first game that Ghost of Yotei’s visuals are masterful. Best-in-class environmental art, an incredible colour palette, and excellent direction make for one of the most beautiful games on the platform. Sony’s first-party stable has been in a visual arms race for over a decade now, and we’re just shocked this level of fidelity can still blow us away.

The game offers four graphical modes. Quality, which targets 30 FPS in exchange for a higher, non-specified resolution. Performance, which targets 60 FPS at a lower resolution. Ray Tracing, which enables high-quality lightning and a non-specific “intermediate resolution,” and Ray Trading Pro, exclusive to the PS5 Pro, which targets 60 FPS with high-quality lighting. We played through the entire game using Ray Tracing Pro, and it’s a visual feast.

Ghost of Yotei’s loading times are nothing short of ridiculous. Fast travelling from one end of the map to the other is quite literally a 1-second fade from location to location.

The game’s music is also excellent. Atsu’s shamisen is both an important narrative device and provides a lot of the game’s score. The interstitial music while exploring the world is moving, as are the occasional lyrical songs that appear during climactic moments.

It feels like there’s not much more a studio can wring out of the open-world formula these days. Ghost of Yotei doesn’t totally reinvent open-world games or throw away the genre conventions entirely. It probably won’t bring back those who’ve completely turned away from the prospect of a massive map and a dozen enemy bases to take down.

But by leaning more heavily into longer character stories that use the open-world framework as a storytelling device, and tying content that would be ancillary in Tsushima into main quests, Yotei delivers an open-world epic without the majority of the bloat.

While overlong at times, the game’s presentational prowess, stellar performances, and vibrance make it a world we’ll continue to wander through, long after we’ve slaughtered the last of the Yotei Six.