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.