There was a moment early on in Ghost of Yotei where I knew it’d won me over. As Atsu, I wasn’t hunting down the Yotei Six who killed my family and left me for dead back in my youth; I was taking on a simple bounty who’d managed to get the better of me. I was all set to watch him plunge his katana in my back and restart the swordfight. Instead, a wolf jumped in out of nowhere, biting him and granting me full health so I could get back up and resume the fight and get my bounty. 

I wouldn’t really see that wolf again until later on when I was led to one of its many dens around the land, but that last-minute save has come to define my experience with Sucker Punch’s first outing exclusive to the PlayStation 5. Yotei brings over many of the same elements as its 2020 predecessor Ghost of Tsushima while channeling similar vibes that made the studio’s Sly Cooper and Infamous franchises so appealing. Acclaimed as Tsushima was, it could feel like it was trying too hard to look like it was successfully mimicking the Japanese films that inspired it. But Yotei continually showed Sucker Punch’s greater sense of confidence in itself to make its own spin on Japanese action stories rather than just emulating the movies that inspired it. 

That’s most apparent in its combat, which retains Tsushima’s core mechanics while carving its own distinct path. Stances are out, replaced with different weapons intended for specific enemies, like the dual katanas for spearmen and the odachi for massive brutes. The rock-paper-scissors dynamic against multiple enemies makes fights fun as Atsu’s arsenal grows to include ranged weapons and quickfire tools, and disarming enemies (or being disarmed by them) can further change things up at a moment’s notice. (Picking up fallen weapons to chuck at enemies? Never gets old.)

Atsu’s most significant additions come via story or side missions that pair her with an expert in that particular armament. The melee weapons see her train with a local master who gives her a quick rundown of their base moves, followed by a chain of side quests that culminate in learning a new combat technique. While the masters don’t play any real narrative role after the initial training, their individual stories and the additional context make acquiring these weapons feel special, and some of the introductory quests have neat gimmicks, like using one side of the controller to train Atsu’s weak hand. And she can only learn new weapon skills at altars strewn around Ezo or at enemy strongholds that need clearing out.

While the combat remains strong, stealth still hasn’t risen to the occasion. Sucker Punch tries to change things up by not giving Atsu the listening ability that lets her track enemies until well into the story. Until then, she can use her spyglass to observe the area and spot points of interest. In practice, the spyglass doesn’t add anything substantial that can’t already be gleaned when the game tells her to look at her surroundings, and it’s effectively useless once her listen power eventually comes into play. It’s still satisfying to clear an area without being spotted, but going quiet doesn’t feel as strong as it could. The story scenarios around the stealth sections can be creative, but they themselves are not, and they don’t endeavor to push you to employ new tactics as you would in other stealth-focused games.

Like Tsushima before it, Ghost of Yotei wants to draw the player into its digital recreation of 1603 Ezo. Using wind and animals to naturally guide players around still works on a navigation and immersive level, and the art direction is as striking as ever. As with Tsushima, Ezo has plenty of areas that exist to let the player take in the scenery and snap photos, and the screen adding black bars during horse rides further helps with the absorption. Where Tsushima was split across three zones in a video game-y way, Ezo feels more like a real place with less defined borders. The inns and communities Atsu travels to feel shaped by the presence of the Yotei Six or the samurai clan warring against their leader, Lord Saito, who in turn reacts to Atsu’s actions throughout the story. 

Yotei doesn’t offer a fully reactive world shaped by what Atsu does, but it properly meets Atsu’s growing power. Whenever a member of the Six has fallen, her bounty increases and her wanted poster changes to make her look increasingly menacing, making it fun to overhear travelers and ronin discuss what she’s done. I once fast traveled to an inn at the start of the game, where higher-ranking samurai were demanding to know where I was; another encounter with a similar group much later on led to my defeat, only to turn out to be a kidnapping I could escape from and kill my captors. Combined with the different tactics and weapons they deploy—spoiler, it turns out guns are their friends much more than yours—victories over these growing escalations continually feel earned in missions or exploring Ezo.

Not everyone is hostile to Atsu’s presence; wives of slain samurai will commend her for bringing the Six to justice and hub areas have gift altars with notes encouraging her to continue her revenge quest. A handful of times while doing a bamboo strike minigame, a crowd would excitedly gather around me as I sliced through poles, reacting to my successful or failed cuts. There are several bounties Atsu can take on to earn some extra money and even incorporate side activities like gambling dens and her shamisen in interesting ways.

These moments went a long way toward encouraging exploration and imbued the sequel with greater charm and personality, which many felt was lacking from Ghost of Tsushima. While it’s still generally running the playbook of somberness as Tsushima, it has less of a stick up its ass and lets itself have some fun. Enough humor is doled out without undermining the tone and several missions carry a spark that’s defined some of the studio’s best work. 

Further helping Ghost of Yotei is its cast and Atsu in particular. She feels like a character more in tune with the developer’s narrative strengths, and in turn, it leads to a compelling performance from Erika Ishii. Where Tsushima protagonist Jin Sakai came off too emotionally detached, Atsu is easier to connect with and gets plenty of moments to let her walls down as she crosses paths with several key allies in her journey. The “Wolf Pack” tab that keeps track of these supporting players is more of a lore guide than a relationship tracker, but it further helps get into Atsu’s headspace as the story progresses. 

Narratively, Ghost of Yotei contains few surprises, but it’s balanced out by how well it’s told and the performances of its cast. In the Yotei Six, Sucker Punch dips back into familiar villainous territory—the original Sly Cooper was also a revenge quest, albeit a more kid-friendly one—and paints each member with some character to be more than one note. Most of them are a sad lot in some fashion, but none of them are ever let off the hook for that night at Atsu’s home, and the gradual reveal of why they targeted her family and their relationships with one another all come together well. None of them also overstay their welcome, and Atsu is within their proximity long enough to make you understand why she and the rest of Ezo hold them in such contempt. 

Enough goodwill is built up throughout the story that it’s a shame when it can’t avoid slipping up. Yotei plays its thematic hand a bit too early, causing several beats in the back half to feel like they should go the opposite of how they normally play out in stories like these. That the game keeps such focus on Atsu’s personal journey also inevitably leaves a plot thread involving an ally samurai clan feeling somewhat abandoned. At first, Yotei takes its time dulling the shine off the warrior class as a means of addressing criticisms toward Ghost of Tsushima for being overly fawning towards them. There’s an undercurrent of class that persists throughout several story beats, giving Atsu’s interactions with samurai and the common folk a distinct edge that Jin’s story did not for most of its runtime.

While these moments of samurai slander are heavy-handed, they’re not unwelcome, and they’re eventually complicated by interesting narrative wrinkles. As such, it’s all the stranger when this samurai thread doesn’t get any closure en route to the finale, even when they’re forced into Atsu’s orbit as part of its ongoing escalation. Yotei is often enthusiastically in conversation with Tsushima, so this oversight feels like a punch pulled to avoid coming off as overly mean toward its predecessor, despite that first game laying the foundation for the sequel to even hit these criticisms at all, albeit unintentionally. 

That Ghost of Yotei can’t entirely seal the deal narratively isn’t the worst black mark against it, and where the story eventually goes lands so well this might not even matter for some. But for a game so strong in nearly every other area, it shows Sucker Punch still has areas to improve as it strives to create the perfect samurai and shinobi simulator. Not too much, though—the studio is already on the right path, as made clear by my 40-hour playthrough with one of its strongest titles to date.

Ghost of Yotei releases October 2 on PlayStation 5.

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