Technologies

I Played Ghost of Yotei. It’s a Stunning Follow-Up That Proves the Ghost’s Legend Lives On

Review: The massive samurai epic expands on Ghost of Tsushima’s best ideas, creating a superior game.

Ghost of Tsushima was the final hurrah for the PlayStation 4, released just four months before the PlayStation 5 arrived. Ghost of Yotei, its PS5-exclusive follow-up from developer Sucker Punch, expands on all the positives from the first game, addresses the few criticisms I had of Tsushima and lives up to all expectations. It’s a bigger world with a grander story, while giving you so much more to do.

Yotei takes place 300 years after the events of Tsushima in a different region of Japan, in Ezo, where Mount Yotei overlooks the land. The hero this time around is Atsu, a mercenary who participated in the Battle of Sekigahara and has returned to her homeland.

Atsu is on a revenge mission to take down the Yotei Six, a band of masked warriors who killed her family. What she finds out is that this roving band of samurai didn’t just come across her home and commit a random act of violence. Instead, it was destiny guiding them all to that one moment that would change the entire region.

Living the life of a Ghost

If you played Tsushima, you’ll feel right at home in Yotei but new players will pick things up fairly quickly, too.

Atsu begins with a katana but soon unlocks a range of melee and ranged weapons from traveling masters, each weapon suited to different foes. For example, dual blades excel at fast combos, the sickle-and-chain kusarigama can break shields and bombs, and bows can handle crowd control and range attacks. Switching tools midfight is often essential, making combat more strategic than in Tsushima.

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The enemies themselves will make use of Atsu’s different weapons, also, turning combat into a bit of a rock-paper-scissors match, trying to guess the best weapon for each scenario — something the different weapon masters help her learn. This leads to an improvement in the enemies themselves, as there’s more strategy when dealing with them. Yes, Atsu using a katana can defeat every enemy, but there are benefits to switching things up. Weapon changes are quite common with the tougher enemies and bosses, which again makes those fights more interesting.

To improve her arsenal, Atsu can gather upgrade components across the land and take them from enemies. With enough money and materials, she can upgrade her weapons, armor and the amount of ammo she can carry. Atsu’s armor, like her weapons, can be swapped depending on fighting style, with one armor more about reducing damage taken, another improving her bow attacks and one designed to improve her stealth attacks. There’s also a range of masks and headwear obtained from bosses and found throughout the region, but these are mainly for cosmetic purposes and don’t provide any benefits.

Straight out of a samurai film

Yotei’s world is far denser than Tsushima’s, with returning pursuits like bamboo cutting, hot springs and shrine exploration joined by new diversions such as painting nature scenes, learning shamisen songs to find new areas or gain other benefits, gambling mini-games and bounty hunts. Together, they create a map packed with meaningful activities instead of empty space.

The most notable addition is the wolves’ den. Atsu develops a bond with a wolf who just happens to have dens all over the region. Coming across one will begin a chase sequence where the wolf takes you to a camp where its friends have been captured. The two of you will take on the captors and, once cleared, Atsu will gain a point in the wolf skill tree that will trigger the wolf’s arrival in fights.

There’s a ton to do in Yotei, so it’s very easy to get distracted for hours instead of pursuing the main missions. This would contribute to the exceptionally long game time, where you can spend 10 to 15 hours in just the starting region of the game before even starting in the next area.

Another favorite side mission is the teachings of Takezo. Early on, Atsu will come across a tree with papers hanging from the branches that have names written on them. They look almost like decorations. This is where you meet Uegatsu, a storyteller who sings a tale about a legendary samurai in that region. His disciples are scattered across the land waiting for someone to give them a glorious fight, and each one has their own personality. I loved how cinematic the buildup to these one-on-one fights was. One particular warrior left dead bodies of his victims as a calling card, and Atsu has to use a special wind chime to find him in this cat-and-mouse-like sequence. Defeating all of Takezo’s disciples will bring him out of retirement and set up a tremendously difficult fight atop Mt. Yotei.

In the story, Yotei starts off with a fairly typical revenge plot, but what makes it interesting is the pacing. There’s this intense buildup when working your way to one of the Yotei Six, with the exception of the first member, Snake, whom Atsu fights in the tutorial. Each member played a role in the death of Atsu’s family, so you’re getting an understanding of them as well as Atsu’s story, and everything comes together piece by piece.

This is where the story excels over Ghost of Tsushima, which started off amazing, trailed off a bit and then had a very exciting climax. With Yotei, it’s not just about building up a legend but also about telling a compelling story. There’s so much that unravels the further into the game you get, not only about what happened that tragic night to Atsu and her family, but also about what led up to that moment and who her parents were.

Along with this epic story is this incredible cinematic presentation. Sucker Punch went all out with cutscenes done in the Cinemscope aspect ratio with black bars on the top and bottom to give them a more theatrical look. There are even additional presentation options based on legendary Japanese film directors. There’s a black-and-white filter for the look of an Akira Kurosawa movie, but for those who want a more grindhouse-type experience, there is a Takashi Miike filter. For those unfamiliar, Miike is notable for his horror movie Audition and Ichi the Killer, with the latter being more of the inspiration for the cinematic mode, as every attack will cover Atsu in blood to an almost ridiculous degree. There’s a third mode named after Shinichiro Watanabe, who directed the anime series Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, and it features a lo-fi beats soundtrack that adds some chill vibes while playing.

What I also really enjoyed were the big battles that Atsu can participate in. She’ll join up with Clan Matsumae, an army going up against Lord Saito, and its battles will sometimes come in handy and other times just get in Atsu’s way. At times, she’ll join their ranks, and it creates these cinematic moments where she charges into fights in a similar fashion to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. There’s one moment in particular where a big group jumps on their horses and charges into battle against Saito’s forces, and you’re not intended to take down all the enemies by yourself. It feels like an actual skirmish is going on. I loved it.

In general, Yotei is an improvement over Tsushima, although it keeps the same artistic look as the original. There are still these incredible fields of eye-popping colors to create a dream-like landscape. Playing it on a standard PS5, I didn’t experience much in the way of dropped frames or any lag. However, I did notice a couple of instances where the beautiful landscapes looked blocky from a distance, which tells me the system took an extra couple of seconds to load the proper assets for that area.

Voice acting was absolutely top-notch with the Japanese audio. There is so much dialogue that is acted so well, whether it be the main character or just the random groups of enemies taunting you. There were only a few instances where I could hear a bit of disjointed or unnatural delivery, but again, this was rare.

Even a legendary sword can have a rough edge

As a whole, I found just a few negatives throughout the game to be aware of. The first one is pretty common and likely could be easily fixed with a patch, and that’s enemy AI. There were so many fights where I’m surrounded by enemies, getting ready for them to attack, and they just didn’t. For instance, there is a terror effect Atsu can have on an enemy that will have them cower in fear when you’re dropping them left and right, but in a lot of instances, they just refused to attack. It’s at these moments that you have to continue attacking an enemy in hopes of getting them to drop their guard, and eventually, others will start attacking.

Aside from that AI problem, there was one puzzle that gave me a bit of trouble. For starters, the clues were vague, and I had to try some different solution combinations to get past it. In another part, I came across a small area where I fell through what I thought was solid ground. Also, standoffs, a reaction event where Atsu can defeat an enemy with one strike, didn’t trigger the option to take out an additional enemy like they were supposed to. I also had these annoying moments of angling Atsu’s placement just right to get in the correct proximity of a character to interact with them. However, those were the only things I could say were even noticeably off when playing through the game over 30-plus hours.

Is Ghost of Yotei worth playing?

Sucker Punch had the difficult task of improving on a game some might consider perfect. Not only did they complete the task, but made it look effortless with Ghost of Yotei. The game has all the same great elements that made the original so enjoyable, yet improved on practically every aspect with hardly any flaws.

Ghost of Yotei will be released on Oct. 2 for the PlayStation 5 for $70.

Technologies

These Are the Weirdest Phones I’ve Tested Over 14 Years

These phones tried some wild things. Not all of them succeeded.

I’ve been a CNET journalist for over 14 years, testing everything from electric cars and bikes to cameras and, er, magic wands. But it’s phones that have always been my main focus and I’ve seen a lot of them come and go in my time here. Sure, we’ve had the mainstays like Apple and Samsung, but I’ve also seen the rise of brands like Xiaomi and OnePlus, while once-dominant names like BlackBerry, HTC and LG have vanished from the mobile space.

I’ve seen phones arrive with such fanfare that they changed the face of the mobile industry, while others simply trickled into existence and disappeared just as uneventfully. But it’s the weird ones that stick in my memory. Those devices that tried to be different, that dared to offer features we didn’t even know we wanted or simply the ones that aimed to be quirky for the sake of quirky. Like someone who thinks an interesting hat is the same as having a personality.

Here then are some of the weirdest phones I’ve come across in my mobile journey at CNET. Better yet, I still have them in a big box, so I was able to dig them out and take new photos — though not all of them still work. Let’s start with a doozy.

BlackBerry Passport

At the height of its power RIM’s BlackBerry was one of the most dominant names in mobile. It was unthinkable then that anything could unseat the goliath, let alone that it would fade into total nonexistence. The once juicy, ripe BlackBerry withered and died on the bush, but not without a few interesting death rattles on its way.

My pick from the company’s end days is the Passport from 2014, notable not just for its physical keyboard but its almost completely square design. The rationale behind this, according to its maker, was that business types just really love squares. A Word document, an Excel spreadsheet, an email — all square (ish) and all able to be viewed natively on the Passport’s 4.5 inch display with its 1:1 aspect ratio. Let’s not forget that all Instagram posts at that time were also square so it had that going for it too. YouTube, not so much.

In theory it’s a sound idea. In practice the square design made it awkward to use, as the physical keyboard was too wide and narrow. Its BlackBerry 10 software, especially the app availability, lagged behind what you’d get from Android at the time. BlackBerry quickly ditched the new shape. After trying to claw back some credibility with its Android phones — including the stupidly named Priv, a phone I quite liked — and by bringing on singer Alicia Keys as Global Creative Director (because BlackBerry phones had keys, get it?) the company stopped making its own phones in 2016.

YotaPhone 2

You’d be forgiven for having never heard of this phone or its parent company, Yota. Based in Russia, Yota made two phones: the creatively named YotaPhone in 2012 and the similarly inspired YotaPhone 2 in 2014, pictured above. Both were unique in the mobile world for their use of a second display on the rear. From the front, these phones looked and operated like any other generic Android phone. Flip them over though and you’d get a 4.3-inch E Ink display.

The idea was that you’d use your Android phone as normal for things like web browsing, gaming or watching videos, but you’d switch to the rear display if you wanted to read ebooks or simply have it propped up to show incoming notifications. E Ink displays use almost no power, so it made a lot of sense to preserve battery life by viewing «slow» content on the back.

The reality though is that beyond ebooks — which aren’t great to read on such a tiny screen anyway — there’s very little anyone might want to use an E Ink display for when out and about. It was difficult to operate, too, thanks to a slow processor and clunky software. After just two generations of YotaPhones, the company went into liquidation.

HTC ChaCha

Remember when Facebook was the cool place to be instead of just the place your parents and their friends go to publicly air their most troubling of opinions? When I was at university, instead of trading phone numbers when you met someone, the default thing was to add each other on Facebook and then begin poking each other. Facebook was so ubiquitous at the time that it was simply the way every single person I knew communicated.

Keen to capitalise on Zuckerberg’s social media success, HTC brought out the ChaCha in 2011. The phone came with an utterly ludicrous name and a dedicated Facebook button on the bottom edge. Tapping this would immediately bring up your Facebook page, allowing you to post the lyrics to Rebecca Black’s Friday, ask what Fifty Shades of Grey is about or do whatever else it was we were all up to in 2011.

Facebook might still be around in one form or another, but HTC abandoned its phone-making business back in 2018. Unsurprisingly, phones with dedicated hardware buttons tied to social media haven’t caught on.

Sirin Labs Finney U1

«Bro!» I hear you shout, all-too loudly. «BRO! You’ve got to check out what my Bitcoin is doing!» You’d then show me your phone and I’d watch while your crypto account plummeted, rebounded and plummeted again over the course of 12 seconds. The phone you’d be showing me, of course, would be the Sirin Labs Finney, a 2019 phone specifically targeted at crypto bros who wanted a device that would perfectly match their high-living, high-fiving crypto-trading lifestyle.

At its core, the Finney is just another Android phone, but a hidden second screen pops up from the back of the phone, with the sole purpose of giving you secure access to your crypto wallet. The phone had a whole host of security features to ensure that only you could access your Bitcoin or Etherium, and it allowed you to send and receive cryptocurrency without having to use a third-party online platform. Apparently that was a good thing.

If you were entrenched in the crypto world, this phone might have been the dream. But the wallet wasn’t easy to use and the phone was expensive, thanks to the cost of that second screen. Sirin Labs stopped making phones soon after and the mobile industry learned an important lesson about not developing hyper-niche devices that aren’t even that well-suited for the handful of customers that might be interested.

Planet Computers Gemini PDA

Half phone, half laptop, all productivity. The Gemini PDA by UK-based mobile startup Planet Computers was a clamshell device in 2018 with a large (at the time) 5.99-inch display and a full qwerty keyboard. It was basically a slightly more modern interpretation of a PDA, like 1998’s Psion 3MX, in that it was effectively a tiny laptop that would fold up and fit in your pocket. The full keyboard allowed you to type away comfortably on long emails or documents while the regular Android software on the top half meant it also functioned like any other phone — apps, games, phone calls, whatever.

It had 4G connectivity for fast data speeds and a later model even got an update to 5G. But, like the BlackBerry Passport, its focus on business-folk and productivity above all else meant it was a niche product that failed to garner enough appeal to succeed. It didn’t help that it was utterly enormous and fitting it in a jeans pocket was basically impossible, so it didn’t impress either as a laptop or as a phone.

LG G5

LG remains a huge name in the tech industry today thanks to its TVs and appliances, but it also tried to be a big player in the phone world, too. I liked LG’s phones — they were quirky and often tried weird things which kept my days as a reviewer interesting, perhaps none more so than the LG G5 in 2016.

LG called the G5 «modular,» meaning that the bottom chin of the phone snapped off allowing you to attach different modules such as a camera grip or an audio interface. Like many items on this list I can say that it’s a nice idea in theory, but in practice the phone fell short. Swapping out modules meant removing the battery, which of course meant restarting your phone every time you wanted to use the camera grip.

It was an inelegant solution to a problem that never needed to exist. But its bigger issue was that the camera grip and audio interface were the only two modules LG actually made for the phone. It’s as though the company had this fun notion in creating a phone that can transform according to your needs but then forgot to assign anyone to come up with any ideas on what to do with it. As a result, the end product was uninspiring, over-engineered and expensive.

Samsung Galaxy Note

Samsung’s Galaxy Note series helped transform the mobile industry. It literally stretched the boundaries of phones, encouraging larger and larger screens — even creating the unpleasant and mercifully short-lived term «phablet.» But the first-generation model in 2011 was controversial, mostly due to what was then considered its enormous size.

At 5.3 inches, it was significantly bigger than almost any other phone out there, including Samsung’s own Galaxy S2 — which, at a measly 4.3 inches, paled into insignificance against the mighty Note. It was mocked for being so huge, with memes appearing online poking fun at people holding it up when making calls. And while times have changed and we now have Samsung’s 6.9-inch Galaxy S25 Ultra, the original Note’s boxy aspect ratio meant it was actually wider than the S25 Ultra. So even by today’s standards it’s big.

It was also among the first phones to come with its own stylus shoved into its bottom. It’s a feature that few mobile companies have mimicked, but Samsung kept it as a differentiator on its later Note models before incorporating it into its flagship S line starting with the S22 Ultra.

Nokia Lumia 1020

Nokia’s Lumia 1020 was my absolute favorite phone for quite some time after its launch in 2013. And it’s because of its weirdness.

Nokia had an amazing history of bonkers mobiles — 2004’s 7280 «lipstick phone,» for example — and while the Lumia range was much more sedate, the 1020 had a few things that made it stand out. First, it ran Windows Phone, Microsoft’s brief and unsuccessful attempt to launch a rival to Android and iOS. A rival that I happened to quite like.

It was also made of polycarbonate, with a smoothly rounded unibody design that strongly contrasted the angular metal, plastic and glass designs of almost all other phones launching at that time. Its look was unlike anything else on sale, and I loved it.

But the main thing I loved was its camera. With a 41-megapixel sensor, Carl Zeiss lens, raw image capture and optical image stabilization, the Lumia 1020 packed the best camera specs of any phone I’d ever seen. It made the phone a true standout product, especially for photographers like me who wanted an amazing camera with them at all times, but didn’t want to have to carry both a phone and a compact digital camera.

While incredible image quality from a phone is a given in almost all camera phones in 2026, the Lumia 1020 was an early pioneer in what could be achieved from a phone camera.

LG G4

LG, twice in one list? Oh yes, my friend, because the G5 seen above was not the first time LG went weird. Launched in 2015, the LG G4 had two main features that raised a few eyebrows. Most notably was LG’s decision to wrap the phone in real leather. Yes, real actual leather. Like what you’d get when you peel a cow. It even had stitching down the back, making it look like a handbag or a boot.

While it’s not a phone for vegans, I actually liked the look, especially as real leather — even the really thin stuff LG used on the G4 — naturally wears over time, gaining scuffs and scratches that give each phone a unique patina. It’s why I love my old leather Danner boots, and it’s why a vintage, worn-in leather jacket will almost always look better than a brand new one. Still, with leather being an expensive — and arguably controversial — material to use on a phone, it’s no surprise LG didn’t return to this idea.

But it’s not the only weird thing about the phone — the G4 was among a small number of phones released around that time that experimented with curved displays. It’s gently bent into a banana shape, the theory being that it makes watching videos more immersive, as is the case with curved screens in movie theaters. The problem is that movie screens are immense, so that curve makes sense. On a 5.5 inch phone like the G4, that curve is barely noticeable and only really served to push the price up.

Motorola Moto X and Moto Maker

I’ve just pointed out how weird the LG G4 was for using leather and now I’m pointing out another phone that, as you can see in the image above, is also wrapped in leather. But the weird thing here isn’t that the Motorola Moto X came in leather — it’s that I personally got to choose that it came in leather.

With the Moto X in 2013, Motorola launched a service called Moto Maker that allowed you to customize your phone in a wild variety of ways. From different-colored backs and multicolored accents around the camera and speakers through to using materials including leather and even various types of wood, there were loads of options to make your Moto X look unique. Each phone would then be made to order and you could even have it personalised with lazer etching and provide your Google account for it to be prelinked on arrival.

If custom-making phones with a vast number of potential options en mass sounds like an absolute logistical nightmare then you’re on the same page as Motorola eventually found itself. Moto Maker only existed for a few years before the company retired its customization service.

Samsung Galaxy Fold

I’m ending on a wildcard addition with the original Galaxy Fold. It’s a wildcard because Samsung’s Fold and Flip range are now up to number seven and we’ve got foldable devices from almost all major Android manufacturers. Though still not Apple.

While the original Fold might have kicked off the foldable revolution, there’s no question it was a weird phone. I was among the first to test it in the world when it launched in 2019 and while I was certainly impressed by the bendy display, its hinge felt weird and «snappy» to use. The outer display was, let’s face it, terrible.

On paper its 4.6-inch size is reasonable, but it’s so tall and narrow that it was borderline unusable for anything more than checking incoming notifications. Trying to type on it meant whittling down your thumbs to pointy nubs so I spent most of my time interacting with the phone’s much bigger internal screen. Cut to today when the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s outer screen measures a healthier 6.7 inches and as a result can function like any regular smartphone, with the bigger inside screen only required when you want more immersive content.

Looking back at the original Fold and its bizarre proportions, it’s honestly a surprise that Samsung persisted with the format. But I’m glad it did.

Technologies

How Verum Ecosystem Is Rethinking Communication

David Rotman — Founder of the Verum Ecosystem

For David Rotman, communication is not a feature — it is a dependency that should never rely on a single point of failure.

As the founder of the Verum Ecosystem, Rotman developed a communication platform designed to function when internet access becomes unreliable or unavailable.

Verum Messenger addresses real-world challenges such as network outages, censorship, and infrastructure failures. Its 2025 update introduced a unified offline-capable messaging system, moving beyond Bluetooth-based or temporary peer-to-peer solutions.

Verum’s mission is simple: to ensure communication continuity under any conditions.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Sunday, Feb. 1

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Feb. 1

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Some of the clues are kind of tricky, but I was able to fill in enough of the others to get them all answered. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.