Ghost of Yotei (PlayStation 5) Review

Much of Sony’s in-house best hits have been built on successful sequels and building of the original Ghost of Tsushima would’ve been a quick sequel but 5 years removed from the original game and Jin’s story already having its conclusion, a direct sequel would’ve been a complete cop out. With the announcement of Ghost of Yotei, we’re introduced into a new story and a new character.

Building on top of what made Ghost of Tsushima a captivating game, Ghost of Yotei flips the script and applies the same story and combat flow but adds its flair that works specifically with our new character. This gives Ghost of Yotei a familiar yet fresh feeling that’s the staple of most of PlayStation’s best titles, polishing what made the original great and adding in flares and garnishes that either improves gameplay.

In this review, we’ll talk about Ghost of Yotei: the second installment in the Ghost of… franchise developed by Sucker Punch Productions and is published by PlayStation. As of release, the game is a PlayStation 5 exclusive.

Plot

Ghost of Yotei is set in the 1600s in Ezo, which is now modern-day Hokkaido. The opening immediately shows us  a flashback of our main protagonist, Atsu, as she clings to life after the Yotei Six murders her family. Forward to the game’s events and we see Atsu on the trail of The Snake, part of the Yotei Six which set her in her vengeful path.

The Snake is part of the collective group led by Lord Saito, together with the Oni, Spider, Dragon, Kitsune, and the Snake. Together they are the Yotei Six and is one of the factions trying to get control of the Ezo region. Ezo locals refers to the rest of Japan as the “mainland” or south, where most of the chaos is still happening at the start of the Tokugawa era. Ezo is where people come to get away from it all.

Atsu returns to her home years after almost dying at the hands of Saito and the Yotei Six. She returns to their home and the game gives us a a nice flashback mechanic to swap from current-time and to the past with young Atsu. Memories of the past shows us some details of the present and reveals discoverable items as well and its worth taking time to listen to their flashbacks.

Back to the overarching plot, after this initial stint in Atsu’s childhood home, the game pretty much just sets the player loose, laying down a few breadcrumbs and tutorials along the way but ultimately is very open in how you progress towards the end.

It is a classic revenge plot with by-the-numbers goals, where Atsu just wants to take down the Yotei Six. And it is immediately clear that Atsu does not hold the same honor that bound Jin Sakai of the first game. While the player will have options on how Atsu reacts to certain in-game events, her overall views in life are distant from familiar samurai lore as she grew up a stray. She isn’t bound by any honor aside from what her parents instilled in her and while plenty, revenge has blinded her.

Atsu is dark and brooding, and the opening of the game gave her notoriety that plays effectively into the random battles the game throws at you. Overall, the story is fleshed out through cutscenes in important parts of the game but the overall world lore is laid out from NPC dialogs and other supporting casts. The game doesn’t take much time away from the actual exploration for a quick lore dump, which keeps the player’s attention focused without going around random side quests.

Ultimately, your end goal is to kill all members of the Yotei Six and avenge your family. Its a straightforward plot setup and is effectively told throughout the game with some predictable twists and turns, but largely good enough to satisfy the narrative needs to drive us forward.

Presentation: Visual & Audio

Ghost of Yotei is a heavily-stylized game much like its predecessor. With no PS4 baggage weighing it down, the devs can pump out the graphics significantly. The game has Quality, Performance, and Ray Tracing modes. I played most of the game in Ray Tracing mode on a base PlayStation 5 and found the performance enough but the fluidity of 120FPS will easily push gamers to Performance in most cases as the game is beautiful in most scenes regardless of the lower resolution.

As mentioned, the game’s visual presentation gives us heavy particles on-screen and the sense of scale in terms of the openness of the map allows traversal by horseback to really make that vintage samurai feel to seep through. For those that have played Ghost of Tsushima, this will feel very familiar and this will be a trend going forward as Ghost of Yotei stays very much loyal to the first game in terms of presentation.

Graphically, for a 2025 game nothing really stands out here but I have to point out that regardless of which mode you choose, the game does its best to keep its framerate at that selected mode. Even when you’re being swarmed by large groups of enemies with flaming swords and scythes.

Before I talk about audio, I want to mention the various tribute modes to filmmakers namely Kurosawa mode, Miike Mode, and Watanabe mode. Named after influential directors of Japanese media Akira Kurosawa, Takeshi Miike, and Shinichiro Watanabe, these mode add visual and audio flare that’s unique to its namesake.

Kurosawa mode comes back from Ghost of Tsushima which is a mode that turns the game black and white, a nod to the classic samurai films. New additions are Miike mode which zooms the camera tighter and drives dirt and guts to the max, obscuring the player’s view but adding a visual treat for those looking to for that added cinematic flair.

Lastly we have Watanabe mode which will also transition us to the game’s audio. Watanabe mode is a throwback to Samurai Champloo which swaps the game’s standard BGM to signature lo-fi audio from Watanabe himself.

The game’s audio design is excellent and keeps that minimal audio inserts to key events in the game while driving up the world audio design. Where the game audio shines is the voice acting and if you’re playing with Japanese audio, this makes more sense, especially if you like the sense of realism that the actual voice acting work for the game’s various characters.

Gameplay

Combat is the bread and butter of Ghost of Yotei and its where Atsu differs from Jin. Whereas Jin has stances for his katana, Atsu swaps that out with full weapons. Instead of bearing a single sword and having various stances to counter varying opponents, Atsu plays this up by switch from a katana, to dual katanas for faster strikes, a larger odachi, to a yari spear for reach, a chain and sickle kusarigama, etc. All of which are complimented a ranged weapon like arrows and thrown weapons and a quickshot weapon like smoke powder.

Depending on how you approach combat, this multi-weapon system can be very effective or immaterial. Players are not compelled to switch weapons and Atsu’s katana is very reliable but if you choose to main one weapon only, take note that some enemies will be harder than others.

Regardles, Atsu’s skill tree has some depth to it to promote varied combat by allowing added techniques to all her weapons. It is key to learn that this game is more about timing rather than button mashing, and while you can wail on an opponent non-stop, this may not be as effective in larger groups and just doesn’t look as stylish as perfectly timed parries that lead to significant counter damage.

Regardless on how you proceed in the game, you’ll eventually go head-to-head with the Yotei Six bosses which are thematic foes in themselves with the likes of the Oni preferring burning swords that add some AOE damage when he sets things ablaze.

This combat loop is the core of Ghost of Yotei, and is essentially a slight change-up from Ghost of Tsushima but the core gameplay loop of Ghost of Yotei itself is traversal, combat, and discovery where players will seamlessly hope from one part of the map to another to get rewards and level-up. It can be a quick game if you just dash through the main quest line but you’ll miss out on a lot of in-game extras like mini-games and bonus items.

We’ll discuss gameplay more in the conclusion but it will feel more of the same if you played Ghost of Tsushima. Its a safe direction for Sucker Punch to take and it gives fans of the first game a new fix after 5 years but while the game sets us in a new story, it will feel very familiar to players of AC or the Horizon games.

Thoughts & Conclusion

Ghost of Yotei reminds me of how I felt with Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok: while in itself not a direct sequel, it retains the trend of keeping what works and adding some quality-of-life polish here and there. And being a standalone story not reliant on the past title, it has the advantage of being much more open to new players that don’t want to do homework when diving into the game.

Overall, its an enjoyable game one that might not have the same gravitas as Jin Sakai’s story but nonetheless interesting in its own right. Its welcoming to casuals but is deep enough for skilled players to try their hands in combat. Other than that, the film stylization and the genre’s tropes keep it grounded to its roots.

The game is as Japanese cinema as it can get. The letterbox wide shots on certain scenes and extended tight zooms on characters’ faces during tense scenes drive up the hallmarks of samurai films presented in a way that its potential goofiness to a younger audience does not subvert the serious tone of the game.

Ghost of Yotei is an enjoyable game overall. The game doesn’t change much from the Tsushima , and it works well for this game as an experience and is satisfying as a whole.