Ghost of Yōtei Review

A belated review for a bloated game? Or an evenly-paced review drop for an experience that requires more than a simple 10 hour investment?

There’s a moment early on in Ghost of Yōtei when our protagonist, Atsu, needs to be trained to dual-wield the katana. Three key things happen around this: we get a new technique, natch (which in Ghost of Tsushima were known as “Sword Stances”), allowing us to more confidently take on spearmen; we gain an ally as part of our on-the-snout ‘Wolf Pack’ and, finally, we’re front-row-centre to a tried and tested Jidai-Geki training trope -- a learned fighting skill for the narrative that will help in eventually besting our despicable antagonist, Lord Saito. It’s the sort of trope now understood as a “training montage” in most modern cinema and TV, though here its poignancy, from a story perspective, outshadows the need for any 80s music accompaniment.

 

All the shame.

 

Hilariously, however, we also learn this specific technique in just a couple of days which is still classic 80s. (Read our “Would you like to know more?” box out for… MORE!) The reason we raise this is because it feels, often, open-world experiences like this are poured over -- from a review perspective -- too early. And it is true certain games and genres can be worked out in initial phases, or can show a gameplay loop soon enough to be confidently scored, but with open-world games, it’s a roll of the dice, or flick of the coin, and we’re genuinely glad we didn’t ‘learn’ our score too early, nor did we intend to expedite proceedings.

But the point is, there’s no rush to judge, but in such cases there’s always a lot to unpack, which is what we’re doing today because Ghost of Yōtei is all things similar and different, but is it enough in either camp given the generational leap?

Ghost of Yōtei

Genre: Open-World Action-Adventure
Developer: Sucker Punch
Publisher: Sony
Release Date: October 2, 2025
Classification: MA 15+
Author: Stephen Farrelly
Date: December 03, 2025

Grassy Knols

As with the first game, Yōtei is a stunning reflection of the beauty of Japan’s rolling hills, colourful flora and billowing winds. The game uses these elements to fill its myriad-coloured skylines with all manner of moving drama; loose foliage, flocks of birds and even the ‘Guiding Wind’ gust itself, frame sentiment, tone and vibe in some of the most mature ways seen in this type of media. It still also features the single best Photo Mode of any game, ever, but incredibly this time around, we found ourselves almost never tweaking the scene -- #NoFilter required. The studio should be hugely proud of its composition and framing throughout as it is simply always breathtaking, as our screenshot carousel will reveal, loaded almost entirely with our own screengrabs.

"Yōtei serves up a lot of out-of-bounds set-dressing..."

Unlike the first game, however, Yōtei feels slightly less ‘open’ as a game-world. It’s not that you don’t have a massive space to play in, it just feels more geometrically directed this time around with less ‘on-foot’ requirement to reach the next mission or point of interest. It also features load-locked areas, meaning it’s not one big ‘open-world’ which equally feels at odds with the power of the machine here. This also works against its lush beauty, often belying the intent of the world at all given the need to load into a specific area, which equally sits at odds with your actions within the space. Plenty of smoke and mirrors too, give a sense of unachievable scale. Where other open-world games like, say, Kingdom Come II: Deliverance or The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom reveal only ever explorable space on their respective horizons, Yōtei serves up a lot of out-of-bounds set-dressing. 

At times the game wants you attached to its world though, so not being able to go here or there isn’t such a huge deal. This is mostly done through survival-lite elements -- for example, similarly to Red Dead Redemption 2, players can now cook at campsites which include full motion control function and interaction (skippable, thankfully), which puts you in Atsu’s boots. But collecting resources around the world features no such depth -- R2-and-done. We can understand the reasoning behind this, but it still feels disjointed, particularly because one is a step forward -- or at least, in a new direction -- while the other is just the old way to do things.

Additionally, there’s still no fluidity to the changing landscape based on your actions. Liberate a homestead overtaken by Saito’s henchies and it’s just no longer under their control and immediately now re-populated with differently-clothed peeps -- peeps on your side. Given the leap from PS4 to PS5 mentioned above, and the time in development, to see something that felt less like a flicked switch and more in line with the length of time your revenge course will actually take you just would have helped build out the game-world more. It’s a common issue with most open-world games and something we’d love to see taken on board in future endeavors and presents as a real missed opportunity here. 

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The exampled New Technique quest comes with a fun design quirk from Sucker Punch. If you played the first game, you'll likely love the bamboo strike mini-game which takes place here, however, because part of this mission is about learning to strengthen your left arm, as a 'righty', you also hit up the bamboo using only the lefthand side of the controller face. This includes adding in L3 and the D-Pad. It's unruly at first and kudos to those of you who nailed it, but for us, we had to let the 'learning' part play out so it shifted slowly back to the natural righty/lefty split normal striles feature. Definitely enjoyed the cheekiness and forward design thinking behind it though.

Selling Moves

We say the above because when we speak of fluidity Yōtei’s most respectable leap comes in its combat. It’s still definitely close to Tsushima, but from an animation and flurry perspective, Yōtei just feels more… realistic. If we were to use pro wrestling to liken both Ghost games, Tsushima is the WWE while Yōtei is definitely AEW. Fighting is still simple and rigid in terms of input and ostensible rock, paper, scissors tacticality, but there’s nuance within these strict confines, which isn’t all that far removed from sword fighting techniques presented in the game anyway. Tsushima kind of gave us a broad fantasy, but Yōtei tells us the martial art is parametered for a reason and as players -- and as Atsu -- that needs to be respected.

"No two bosses ever feels the same in Yōtei, whereas in Tsushima it did often feel like you were simply facing a higher challenge rather than a fighting style wielded by a unique personality..."

Baddies react realistically to your attacks, and you’ll feel each blow that makes its way past your block or parry attempt. Also, the gang-up aspect this time around is no joke. And no two bosses ever feels the same in Yōtei, whereas in Tsushima it did often feel like you were simply facing a higher challenge rather than a fighting style wielded by a unique personality (read our “Would you like to know more?” box out for… MORE!). And all of this helps make the combat journey feel more intimate. Close-quarters is tight and fast and while the camera and some lock-on mechanics can frustrate at times, it’s still hugely fun and rewarding. Picking up dropped swords to throw at anyone you choose is an exhilarating action, and even presents as humiliating for the victim -- such is the sense of pride embedded throughout the whole of the game’s combat and bravado.

Atsu’s growth around this and everything she learns on her journey not only helps the player work on their own specific playstyle, but gives us a believable path to revenge -- it also meaningfully sends us down a path she clearly doesn’t want to be taken down. Revenge might best be served cold, but if the body of the servant is already cold enough, what’s left? Onryo is the answer the game gives us, but we’d pose a larger question over it all, though then we’d be entering spoiler territory and that’s worth avoiding here.

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Ghost of Yotei's fighting utilises animation and weight to a greater degree than Tsushima. Different enemies fight with different styles and even certain bosses have a flair -- or affliction -- that changes how you need to think about facing them. Everything from drunkeness to fending off a discarded boat oar are what you might face in Yotei and the experience is all the better and more "fluid" for it.

Sting Like a Bee, Bloat Like a Fly

While everything above sets the tone for a picturesque Jidai-Geki, with a touch of grime and grit, Yōtei’s story is far more interesting in that it really doesn’t need any of the survival or building or even exploration elements, not only presented before us, but more often than not forced upon the player. Those are open-world videogame beats embedded because otherwise what are we doing with such a big space to play in? To analogue Red Dead Redemption 1 & 2, which pulls from as many Westerns as both Yōtei and Tsushima do Jidai-Geki, Rockstar’s open-worlds presented a blossoming backdrop that dramatically changed with purpose and reason. Its world literally evolved alongside you and your own journey, foregoing any need to ‘level-up’, so to speak. And its sense of discovery was so heavily embedded in the design of the world that POIs never actually felt like they were signalling “hey I’m over here -- come raid my chimney”. 

That doesn’t quite happen to the same degree here.

"The issue then centres around emergent, discoverable play verses geometrically directed play..."

Smoke of varying types will indicate on the horizon, fairly plainly, what you’re heading towards in Yōtei, while Isaburo the Cartographer or info drops from NPCs can net you an actual drawn POI to add to your map. It’s cute and works well in the set up, but becomes very ‘videogamey’, for lack of a better descriptor. The issue then centres around emergent, discoverable play verses that earlier-mentioned “geometrically directed” element, which tends to lead to a ‘checklist’ style of play (read our final “Would you like to know more?” box out for… MORE!). And as ‘fluid’ as some parts of Yōtei are, it winds up being so much closer to Tsushima in that checklist department which makes many parts of the world and how you evolve Atsu as a player, as more chore-driven than ‘growth-by-happenstance’ -- the way journeys like this should play out.

Which isn’t to say character growth shouldn’t be a reflection of game-time or player investment, nor that the game shouldn’t offer you some guidance. It’s just that after a while a hot spring becomes less of a genuine stumble upon spot and stunning part of a world to be discovered, and one simply needed to expand max health so you can take on Takezo the Unrivaled. And when you’re winding up rinse-repeating the ‘discoverable’ parts of a game-world, you can start to feel a bit bloated by it all.

The Longest Chanbara

Which brings us to why we’re here at all. 

Atsu’s revenge journey could have easily been told in any style of game and would have played out just as well without the open-world attached. We ended up playing the game more as a bounty hunter with a huge ego than as a trauma-scarred woman seeking revenge. And the lack of in-game acknowledgement of that jarred our choice to play that way, but would have gone a long way to helping the open-world set up in the first place. Yes, this is a pointed revenge tale with a handful of twists, and while it is a common setup, its nuances and writing are top notch, as are the key performances. And we understand how hard it is to tell a directed tale when you leave people with so much to do. Tsushima worked well in this regard because Jin was effectively liberating his playspace, but for all intents and purposes, Atsu is a vagabond; a ronin who snubs her nose at authority and only looks after herself. So, at times that personality and a world in front of you in need of some saving don’t tend to gel well.

"It just, at times, felt a bit disjointed or at odds with itself because of all of the above..."

That said, you can definitely park any sense of duty towards killing off the “Yōtei Six” and just, you know, faff about -- as we did. It just, at times, felt a bit disjointed or at odds with itself because of all of the above. And while we were compelled to play for myriad reasons, we also found ourselves beat at points, like we’d just put in a day’s work, you know, unfogging the map, crossing off checklisted items… max healthing at a spa. 

Maybe we ask too much for it to all feel more fluid and less like a game with metronomic beats but when it is this stunning and enticing, you kind of want the adventure to unfurl at a more natural pace. And while aspects of Yotei absolutely do, other parts of it do become tedious and repetitious. 

Still, it is absolutely the single best game on PlayStation 5 in 2025 and if you enjoy long and drawn out adventures with lots and lots to do, this is definitely the benchmark exclusive for the platform. 

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The Spider Lily General armour set mission is arguably Yotei's best. Sucker Punch flexes a little bit horror and thematic, playng with the idea behind Yokai and more, while leveraging its amazing engine and art direction to build drama that not only entices, but ingests unease. If the studio were so compelled we could see some sort of survival horror in its future. Just go look for the "Mysterious Gates" and you'll enter a world of awesome.

What’s Boss?

  • A stunning, stunning world with stll the best Photo Mode out there
  • Atsu as a character is fantastic and brilliantly written
  • Huge playspaces to explore
  • Combat is more fluid and more realistic, and therefore more challenging
  • The wolf companion is great and a wonderful side-ish aspect that plays out at the pace you play the game at
  • An excellent soundtrack, great film modes and other options to set up your playstyle as you please

Not Boss Enough?

  • Too checklisty
  • The camera in some outnumbered skirmishes is as bad as an enemy poking you with a red glint, though unseen
  • The disparate setup between survival and press-to-collect breaks he overall intent, it feels
  • Not a fan of being forced to use the controller functions just because they're there
  • Enemy rubberbanding is still an issue, and often worse here

Walk or ride around in a stunning version of feudal Japan as a vagabond seeking revenge. Befriend a wolf, create legend and turn the tide of history in a lush world full of hope and terror.

Learn about our reviews

About the Author

Written By Stephen Farrelly
Stephen Farrelly is a veteran journalist and editor with more than two decades experience in the worlds of gaming, entertainment, lifestyle and sport. He is a proud pug dad, loves art in all forms (particularly street and tattoo culture), and is the director of Swear Jar Editorial and Media Pty Ltd, this site's owner and publisher. When not dispensing words, he's also dispensing boutique beers as a taproom fixture at Bracket Brewing in Marrickville, NSW...
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