The July 2025 State Of Play showcase is all about Sucker Punch’s upcoming sequel to Ghost Of Tsushima, Ghost Of Yōtei. And it’s looking like the open-world game set in 16th century Japan will be even slicker than ever with some new, and smart, design changes to the open world.
One of the highlights of the gameplay showcase is how you are free to explore the lands of Ezo that overlooks Mt. Yōtei at your own pace, but also by your own choice and preference. Similar to Ghost Of Tsushima, the open world map doesn’t clutter up with checklisting activities from the get-go, it’s something for you to discover yourself.
While the predecessor does this by hinting you with cues when you’re close to a point of interest, Ghost Of Yōtei steps it up by allowing you take take clues that will mark a point of interest. Interrogate an enemy and you’re given the choice of several clue cards to pick, each with hints of what rewards await you for going there.
Should you incline to explore the ol’ fashion way, a spyglass is available to get a closer look at potential points of interest.
You can also buy maps from a cartographer, which reveals points of interests for a particular region, and the gameplay shows that you may have to slot in the piece of map onto the world map screen like a jigsaw puzzle. So it’s not just a bunch of markers get immediately revealed.
Sucker Punch’s Jason Cornell and Nate Fox, the narrators of the showcase and creative directors for the game, said that “Ghost Of Yōtei isn’t gonna rush you through anything” and “it’s not about checking it all off, it’s about engaging in the content that gets you excited.” Now that’s a sucker punch to the conventional open world games that have homologated so much that it starts to feel like the same generic theme park with different themes.
Another smart change is the ability to set up camp anywhere. The act of camping itself isn’t the innovation, rather, it’s the ability to have allies, companions, and befriended NPCs to come to you is what makes it interesting. Rather than having to fast travel to disparate parts of the world just to start a quest, turn in a quest, or buy/sell items, friends that are part of protagonist Atsu’s Wolf Pack can come to her camp instead.
Ghost Of Yōtei also has new weapon types. Ghost Of Tsushima’s protagonist Jin Sakai only uses katanas and bows, given his samurai upbringing before he turned ghost. Atsu, on the other hand, has access to multiple melee and ranged weapon types. Not only the katana, Atsu can be proficient with fast dual-blades, pokey spears, massive odachis and tricky kusarigamas for melee. And for ranged, aside from the bow she can also whip up a matchlock gun and use heavy bows. Plus, the usual throwables are there, as well as environmental specific throwables. Atsu’s no samurai or ninja, so she (and you the player) has free range on what moves you can use without having to adhere to any code of honour.
Ghost Of Yōtei also confirms Photo Mode will be available on launch.
Lastly, Ghost Of Yōtei will feature more modes and Japanese voiceovers with full lip-sync at launch (a feature Ghost Of Tsushima lacked until it was added much later post-release).
Alongside Kurosawa Mode (black and white filter, flim grain, audio filter, increased wind speed), Sucker Punch have partnered with two other film directors to bring their distinguished cinematic flair to Ghost Of Yōtei. Miike Mode moves the camera much closer during combat with heighten blood and mud splatters to reflect the works of Takashi Miike like 13 Assassins. Meanwhile, Watanabe Mode is a nod to Samurai Champloo director Shinichiro Watanabe. No, it’s not an anime filter. Rather, the music is changed to lo-fi beats, all original and made for the game. Shouldn’t this be called Nujabes Mode, though? The lo-fi hip-hop beats of the late composer has inspired the lo-fi genre of music.
But in any case, Ghost Of Yōtei has lo-fi beats to ride a horse and hunt bounties to.
Ghost Of Yōtei releases on October 2 for the PS5.