Ghost of Yotei: How Sucker Punch Took Its Samurai Saga to Hokkaido

Mount Yotei is a near-perfect cone of a volcano in western Hokkaido. On calm days it sits reflected in the water of nearby Lake Toya. That reflection was one of the first images that inspired Sucker Punch Productions when it began planning a follow-up to Ghost of Tsushima.

The result, Ghost of Yotei, launched on PlayStation 5 on October 2, 2025. It earned an 86 on Metacritic, with 94% of critics on OpenCritic recommending it, and Sony reported about 3.3 million copies sold by November 2, 2025, a month after launch. It is still a PS5 exclusive, and as of this month there is no PC version.

A new hero, 329 years later

Ghost of Tsushima (2020) followed Jin Sakai through the Mongol invasion of 1274. Yotei is not a direct sequel. It jumps 329 years to 1603 and moves north to Ezo, the old name for what is now Hokkaido, then a frontier largely beyond the reach of Japan's central government.

The new lead is Atsu, a mercenary who has spent sixteen years planning revenge on the "Yotei Six", the gang led by the renegade lord Nariaki Saito who destroyed her family. The English voice is Erika Ishii. Players can tackle most of the Six in any order, which gives the story a looser, more open shape than the original.

What changed in the fighting

Sucker Punch kept the cinematic sword duels and stealth of Tsushima, but rebuilt much of the combat around weapons rather than stances:

• Atsu carries a katana, a yari spear, a kusarigama chain-sickle, an odachi great sword and dual katana, plus bows and early firearms.
• The stance system is gone, replaced by weapon counters: certain enemies are best handled with certain weapons.
• Atsu can disarm foes and throw dropped weapons.
• The grappling hook is available from the start.
• A wolf companion can be called into fights.

Away from combat, side activities include bounty hunting, sumi-e ink painting, a coin game called zeni hajiki and shamisen songs. Playing certain songs even changes the direction of the guiding wind, the series' replacement for a mini-map arrow.

Awards, sales and a growing package

Ghost of Yotei had a strange awards season. At The Game Awards 2025, Sony led all publishers with 19 nominations and won nothing. Elsewhere, Atsu did much better:

• D.I.C.E. Awards: Adventure Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Character and Original Music Composition
• Golden Joystick Awards: Console Game of the Year and Best Audio Design
• BAFTA Games Awards: Music and Technical Achievement

Commercially, it topped the Japanese charts in its launch week with an estimated 120,196 retail copies, ranked third in the US in October 2025 behind Battlefield 6 and Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and finished 11th for the year in the US.

Then the post-launch plan arrived. Ghost of Yotei: Legends, a co-op mode in the tradition of Tsushima's popular Legends, was released free for owners on March 10, 2026. A Complete Edition followed on October 1, 2026, bundling Legends with a single-player expansion, Echoes of Sekigahara, and a survival mode called Most Wanted.

How it was made

Pre-production began in 2021. Directors Nate Fox and Jason Connell returned. Because Ezo was home to the Ainu, Hokkaido's Indigenous people, the studio used cultural advisors and consulted Ainu representatives during development. The aim was to portray the island's history and people with the same care Tsushima tried to show Japanese history, while being clear that this is a fictional story set in a real place.

Why it matters

In a year when Sony had no big multiplayer hit, Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2 carried PlayStation's reputation for polished single-player games. Yotei is more of a confident evolution than a revolution, but it is a beautiful one, and with Legends and the expansion now included, it is a far bigger game than at launch.

WGC's take: if you loved Tsushima, Yotei is an easy recommendation. If you found the first game's open world repetitive, the weapon system and freer story order make this one noticeably livelier. Next, read our Death Stranding 2 feature on Sony's other big 2025 exclusive, or our 2025 year in review.