How Sucker Punch aims to take feudal Japan to the next level with Ghost of Yōtei

In 2020, Sucker Punch released Ghost of Tsushima, a feudal Japan-set open-world action-adventure game, and it quickly became a PlayStation fan favourite. Five years later, the Seattle-based developer is following up Tsushima with a standalone sequel, Ghost of Yōtei. Set hundreds of years after the events of the first game, Yōtei follows a rōnin named Atsu who seeks vengeance against the clandestine “Yōtei Six” who murdered her family, destroyed her home and left her for dead.

MobileSyrup caught up with creative directors Jason Connell and Nate Fox, who also helmed Tsushima, to get more insight into what was shown during the Yōtei-centric State of Play presentation on July 10. Specifically, they talked about expanding upon Tsushima‘s key pillars (“lethal precision in combat,” samurai film inspirations, cultural advisor consultation, conveying Japan’s beauty and freedom of exploration), the power of the PS5 tech, the inspiration behind new partnerships with Takashi Miike (13 Assassins) and Shinichirō Watanabe (Samurai Champloo) and more.

One of the exciting things as gamers is we get to see what developers do over the course of a console generation as they get more experienced with the hardware. Of course, Sucker Punch isn’t brand-new to the PS5, as you brought Tsushima Director’s Cut to PS5. But this is the first game you’re building for the ground up [for PS5]. What are some of the ways that you’re really pushing the tech with Yōtei?

Nate Fox: It’s actually in the State of Play! We’re really excited about this idea that when Atsu goes to some places that are really rich with memories, for her, with the touch of a button, you can go back to her youth, and you can play as young Atsu running around, talking to people that she loved. And of course, we do that so you can get a feeling for what you lost. But what’s really cool about the technology here, and this is something we could only do with the PlayStation 5, is that we have both her modern times and her history loaded at the same time. So you can hit the button and go back and forth, back and forth, and you can see the changes. You can see her house in her youth being this really warm place, and then her house as an adult that’s been worn down by weather, and it’s a cold and lonely place. It’s impactful, and you identify with her, but it’s thanks to the technology that we can do that […]

Have you ever gone back to the house you grew up in and gone to your bedroom and looked at anything and seeing memories just jump out at you? It’s a very human experience. We’ve all done it. We thought that it would be powerful to let players experience that through interactivity. We’re always looking to make emotions come through choices that the players make, and understanding through interactivity who she was is a top goal for us, so that people can internalize that desire for vengeance that motivates her first steps on her journey. So it really starts with emotions — what is the feeling you’re trying to get across? And then you think about how you can do it through technology or through interactivity.

That touches on the main story. But probably my favourite part of Tsushima was actually the sidequests. Obviously, the main campaign was really good, but I loved that there’s these short stories, like where Jin’s working with a former mentor who has ideological differences, or even those Mythic Tales, which had a different flavour of narrative as well with their striking painterly aesthetic. You have the side activities, like the little shrines and everything. But for the more bespoke, narrative-driven side content, what’s the sort of philosophy for them in Yōtei?

Jason Connell: There’s a whole host of things, some of which you mentioned. Those stylish sort of Mythic Tales, really wonderful side stories… We often say in the studio that we like to create an “anthology of stories” as our side content in the game. And for sure, we have elements that celebrate that. And in one very specific way that we do talk about a little bit in the State of Play, but we’re happy to talk more about today is that we create new weapons in the game. But they’re not just weapons you get from anyone. You actually have to go develop relationships, find and develop relationships with these senseis. And you meet these senseis, and some of them have interesting philosophies that are different than yours. Some of them are very similar life experiences, so you bond over that, but there’s that anthology of side story magic. Some of the stuff you’re talking about is actually even in some of the characters that give you access to these cool weapons, and they’re in the side content, you have to go look for them.

And that, to us, is like celebrating the open world game design, obviously — finding senseis to get weapons, I feel like I’ve seen that in movies. I feel like I played that game. That feels like a great, familiar thing to latch on to that feels “fantasy centre” for people. And it’s going to obviously help you on your vengeance quest. If you’re on your vengeance quest and you have a couple extra weapons, things get a little easier, so it is sort of all in support of that as well. But we really have spent a lot of time building out new and exciting features and minigames for people to experience while they explore. We showed a few of them. We have the sumi-e [Japanese ink] painting minigame. We gave a very small glimpse at this cool gambling coin flicking game. I’m excited about letting people play that, and people will really quite like it. It’s fun. And just expanding on that — even taking many games that we’ve had from the previous game and people really liked, but turning them on their head a little bit so they’re a bit different. So you get to see it in a different way. And so it’s all about really celebrating the open world. And especially those side stories, we quite love them a lot.

Another one of the best parts of Tsushima is how you more subtly integrated player guidance into the world itself, whether it was the Guiding Wind or the foxes that lead you to shrines. And this time around, you “have the game come to you,” as you mentioned in the State of Play, where Atsu is at a campfire and NPCs appear. Where did the inspiration for that idea come from, and what can players expect every time they visit a campsite and soak in the atmosphere?

Connell: We love the nature aspects. I’ll talk about that in a second. I’ll get to the first part in a second. But campsites, like any feature that fits into our game world, it’s really got to fit into the ethos of the tone of the vibe of the world. Hokkaido, or, back then it was called Ezo, is a dangerous, lawless, epic, vast landscape, lots of wilderness. When Nate and I visited, we went to a place where there were bears all around us. It was pretty wild. And what do you do when you go out in the woods? Go camp a bit. And so, it feels like it’s tonally a great connection to the game. But furthermore, it’s a mechanic that makes the game a bit more approachable. We already have fast travel. If you’re over here in the grasslands and you want to fast travel to upgrade your bow, which is maybe over in the snow area, you can certainly do that, and it’ll be really fast, and you upgrade your bow, and then you fast travel back to the grasslands and do what you were doing, exploring. And you can still do that.

Or you can throw down a campfire and pull your bow [upgrader] in. You can essentially summon them to your campfire, do your business, hang out, and you never have that discordant feeling of leaving to go over to the snow land. You can do both, if you like going to do the fast travel and that’s easy for you, great. If you want to do some camping, get a little show, health boon and spirit boon, great — you can do that, too. It’s all us trying to offer new ways to keep the game really approachable. We certainly love nature and the Guiding Wind is back in the game. We have that, and we have a couple other ways in which we try to guide you through the landscape. We showed the boost flowers. They’re basically these flower streams that if you ride in them, Atsu really loves riding in these flowers, and she gets a little bit of speed boost. But furthermore, if you actually follow them, oftentimes they lead you to things. So, there’s just another way in which we try to create subtle guidance in the game to really just celebrate the beautiful landscapes.

I was really surprised to see the clue system with the cards and everything. I thought that was really interesting. Like, there’s a lot of games that have card mechanics, but this is an interesting spin on that. Where did the idea for that come about, especially in terms of how it relates to exploration and narrative?

Connell: One of the genesis points to that is that we’re always asking ourselves, “What are more engaging, artistic or diegetic ways that we can keep you informed of the game?” These are pretty big games with lots and lots of competing things for your attention. The journal was great in Tsushima, but we opted to not go that route this time because of the laundry list of just text on the screen telling you what you can do, what you’re currently doing, and what you could do and what you have done. And it’s just daunting when you look at it — here’s like 50 things with lots of text on each one. We opted for [something] more Atsu-driven… she draws these cards, and it’s a pictorial sort of way for people to manage. They still can read a little bit if they want, but each one has their own unique art of trying to give you an idea to whet your appetite for what you might be getting. A piece of armour on one card, you know that’s probably giving some armour. You’ll start learning that these cards mean the golden path story, the gold ones. The black ones with the faces on them are the bounty cards. You start building a visual memory of them. It’s just a little bit easier way to interface with the game.

Now, on top of that, it’s our way, when you are navigating the world and asking around, to feed you some interesting content that you may not have done before or haven’t gotten a weapon in a while. Maybe we might tease you about where a weapon sensei might be, because we know the game is more enjoyable when you get a new weapon. So it’s multifaceted. It’s certainly a new part of the game we’re excited for people to try.

Speaking of weapons… The combat in the original game was very well-received, and this looks to be in a similar spirit, but you’ve made some tweaks. You have different weapon types and moving away from stances a little bit, it appears. And you mentioned a sort of “fighting dirty” playstyle for Atsu. What was the impetus for going in that direction, and what different feel might that bring compared to playing as Jin in Tsushima?

Fox: Right. In Tsushima, we had a stance system that we loved. You had four different stances that you could employ to take down different kinds of enemies. And we actually still have it in Yōtei. In fact, we made it bigger; instead of four stances, it’s now five. And instead of the stances being how you hold your sword, we changed those stances to be different melee weapons. It is still actually the same stance system; it’s just grown. We wanted to keep that familiar lethal precision from Ghost of Tsushima, which we really, really loved, and grow on top of it. So now, if you’re using a kusarigama (chain-sickle), which is the right choice to take out an enemy with a shield, like the stance system, it has extra functionality on top of that. So for instance, if you’re surrounded by enemies, you can swing that weighted chain around and do an area effect attack. Or if you’re near a cliff and you’ve got a spear, you can use it to knock an enemy off the cliff to kill them. So it’s actually the same combat system with more options on top of it to give players more freedom to improvise in the moment.

And of course, that’s on top of other new elements, like being able to disarm enemies, pick up a weapon off the ground, maybe after you disarm them, huck it at another villain, or being disarmed yourself, and what that does to your feeling of momentum, because you were doing really well and you lost your weapon, potentially off a high point. What are you going to do? You’ve got to scramble, the tables have turned. Of course, it’s all, like I said, built off of the same system from Ghost of Tsushima, just with more options for the player.

You have these cool new filters. Of course, you have Kurosawa mode coming back, which is a no-brainer that speaks for itself. But you confirmed two new ones, the collaborations with Takashi Miike and Shinichirō Watanabe. How did you decide on those new presentation modes to include, and what did those collaborations look like with Miike and Watanabe?

Connell: What’s great is we have one that’s primarily visual, black and white [Kurosawa]. It’s a pretty stunning sort of visual change. It’s actually got some audio changes too, but it’s primarily a big visual change. We have one that is a bit more intense, sort of focused around the intimacy of combat and the visceral-ness of combat and getting in real close [Miike]. And then we have one that’s purely audible [Watanabe]. And so it’s nice to have a couple different versions there. That’s the balance. That’s why we kind of chose those particular three at a structural level, mechanical level.

But I’ll tell you, let’s take Miike, for example. 13 Assassins — there are not very many films that have come up over the last decade — not just throughout Yōtei, but Tsushima as well — that is the combat sort of reference point. You watch that movie, there’s lots of bloody combat. And even for Yōtei, you’re picking up weapons, it’s got that layer of improvisation that Nate talked about. It’s a really great reference for us, and we love that film. We’ve watched it many times throughout the course of a decade of making these games. So to be able to celebrate that, reached out to him. He was so stoked and so excited. Really great guy. Really had a lot of cool artistic overlap on sorts of things. And he even named a sword kit in the game; there’s a custom sword kit that he named. I’ll let people figure out which one it is. Maybe big 13 Assassins fans might know. It’s exciting. It’s exciting.

The Watanabe mode. I mean, Samurai Champloo. The other two modes are kind of really classical samurai films, or more modern-contemporary samurai films. And this is kind of a different sliver. But there is a big overlap from people that like our games and who really enjoy anime. And Samurai Champloo, in particular, was kind of the genesis point of using that type of music, lo-fi tracks inside of their music, it was a really big attraction point to the show. Not to mention it’s a great show in general. So we felt like, “Hey, you see these streamers that play our game, and they kind of mute the music and they just put lo-fi tracks on there. Why not celebrate the genesis point of the director that started it all in a mode in our game?” So we reached out to him, he was very excited to collaborate, and he went off and had the musicians already in mind. He was so fast and knew exactly who to use. And he created some original tracks for us, including a couple remix tracks of our score. So it’s both original tracks and remixes.

I read the PlayStation Blog post where you talked about going Hokkaido and soaking in the beauty.  Something that’s great about games is that they offer a more affordable way for people who might not necessarily get to go to Japan. Obviously, ideally, they will, but for now, at least, they could play your game and immerse themselves in that setting. Having been there and done so much research and worked with the cultural advisors, what are some of the biggest takeaways that you hope players have about Hokkaido or Ezo?

Fox: If we can provide 1/100 of the beauty of Hokkaido, we’re doing a great job. The place is unbelievably gorgeous. And it’s a large part why we chose to set the game there. But doing right by this incredible landscape is huge. The other one is we’re very proud to be able to do our best, particularly through help with advisors, to represent Ainu culture, which is something that doesn’t get a lot of attention in other forms of media. And it’s a very unique part of what life was like back in Ezo in that time. And it’s an excellent aspect of the game, and I feel very grateful that we have an opportunity to do that because of the time and place where the game is set.

Final question. I know you mentioned you saw bears in Hokkaido — hopefully that encounter wasn’t too dangerous! Was there anything else in particular that stood out, like a favourite memory being there, whether it was a particular place, or animal, or vista — that sort of thing?

Connell: Well, lucky for us, we didn’t actually see any bears up close! In the mountain range, national park, we were going and they gave us a warning and everything.

Fox: We had to watch a warning video!

Connell: I mean, I grew up in Alaska, so I was a bit more comfortable with bears, maybe, but I still was like, “This feels like I’m just walking into a bear den.”

Fox: [makes bear gesture]

Connell: [laughs] It was beautiful, though. It was guided. It was just really stunning. I think the other one, for me personally, was Lake Tōya, which is this beautiful lake that looks out. And there’s Mount Yōtei right there. You can just see it off in the distance. Luckily, it was a really clear day when we went. It was just very awesome, very awe-inspiring. It’s a pretty large mountain and just really kind of sets the stage and scale of the place and the magnitude of the environment and just how wild it is. And that, to me, those two memories combined — I came back being like, “Wow, we have to make this place feel vast and epic and really leverage the beauty from Tsushima in a new way for Yōtei that, again, is really fresh or familiar those players from Tsushima but in an expanded way for Yōtei.

Fox: I was very impressed, actually, when going down to the Oshima Peninsula and seeing Matsumae Castle… We went there and there were suddenly cherry blossoms everywhere. And it’s because a lot of these trees had been taken up to Hokkaido from people from Honshu who wanted to bring a little bit of home with them. And what a dramatic feeling of transition it was into that space because of people taking little bits from their home in the south into the north, and how it was very, very different. It just reminded me that Hokkaido is very much its own land, because we just didn’t see those cherry blossoms before going down to the southern tip of the island.

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Correction: 17/07/2025 at 5:31 p.m. ET — This article previously stated that Nate Fox said the team is excited to represent “a new culture” in the game, but it should say “Ainu culture.” We’ve updated this accordingly.

Ghost of Yōtei launches exclusively on PS5 on October 2.

Image credit: PlayStation