Ghost of Yotei – The Aftermath Syndrome PlayStation

Ghost of Tsushima is one of, and perhaps even my favorite game of the eighth generation of consoles. Initially completely uninterested in the first images and trailers, I fell completely under the spell of the small Japanese island and its tale. The scale and precision of its open world, the finesse of its combat, the beauty of its colors. It’s a feeling shared by many other players. Developed by the American studio Sucker Punch, Tsushima was a true magnum opus, the result of seven years of work, bringing the PlayStation 4’s catalog of exclusives that made it such a resounding success to a close. This is quite a poetic feat when you realize that the same studio launched the console with InFamous: Second Son in 2013.

Excitement was at its peak when Ghost of Yotei was announced, as it seemed to take all the ingredients that made Tsushima a success and put them into a new historical and narrative setting. But as excerpts, trailers, and other marketing materials were released, it became clear that Yotei seems to borrow *a lot* from its big brother. Just enough? Too much, or at least enough to blur the line between the two, even for a big fan of the first game like me?

Especially since the competition in this genre is fierce this year. With excellent indie and AA games centered around similar or related themes, such as Art of Vengeance, Ragebound, the resurgence of Ninja Gaiden… Another game much closer to Yotei was released earlier this year: Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. With a popular theme, Yotei has already proven that the gamble was a winning one. With over 3 million units sold in a month, the game has more than recouped its budget and then some. However, on closer inspection, Ghost of Yotei seems to follow a pattern that has been emerging in recent years with sequels to major PlayStation exclusives. Far from being bad games, these blockbusters often fall into the trap of playing it safe, and it seems that a new contender with sharp swords and a tuned shamisen has arrived. 

A sense of déjà vu

Ghost of Yotei invites us to hunt down six individuals, each more hideous than the last, in a quest for revenge for our protagonist, Atsu. A grief that, like Mount Yotei, is omnipresent in the game, overshadowing every element and line of dialogue. It’s a scenario that has been explored many times before, not least in AC: Shadows earlier this year. However, the personal dimension of this vendetta allows it to shine brighter, and it’s fun to see a ruthless and confident Atsu track down, find, and eliminate almost all of the Yotei Six throughout the game while gathering his “pack” of allies and friends to help him in his quest.

Unfortunately, this formula, as effective as it is, is diminished by the non-linear structure of the game desired by Sucker Punch. More specifically, the first chapter begins with two targets located in roughly different regions, and it’s up to us to choose where we want to go first. The result is a kind of narrative disconnection depending on the order we follow. The regional plots are important to the rest of the story, absolutely. And overall, Sucker Punch does a good job. The characters we meet are good, each feeding into the melodrama of Atsu’s revenge in their own way. But looking at all these scattered pieces, not only does the open structure bother us, but it’s even difficult not to see an order, albeit somewhat arbitrary, but logical, that Sucker Punch could have adopted to tie everything together more coherently. To bounce back to the idea of the pack mentioned earlier, it’s even more of a shame to see that most of its members will inevitably take a good number of hours before interacting with each other. Confined to their regions until the player decides to launch the second chapter, the other wolves are each in their corners waiting for the alpha. The division into several regions separated by corridors helps to make Ezo more digestible and less tedious, but it detracts from the narrative. Once this part is over, the game puts you back on the narrative track and the plot is greatly enhanced. Events accelerate, everyone is called upon to contribute, and the climax of the final act is all the more dramatic.

Ultimately, what we have here is a convincing but very conventional plot, yet another reflection on revenge and the extreme sacrifices it leads to. Are they worth it? You know the answer; we’ve been given it many times before. Many other games, even within Sony’s catalog of exclusives, have already served us a similar storyline. While the structures vary depending on the genre, revenge is always treated in the same way, and Yotei is no exception to the rule. It contaminates the mind, blurs the line between good and evil, and pushes people to make irrational decisions with potentially dangerous or even disastrous consequences, not only for the protagonist, but also for those around them. Somewhat forced by its inspirations, Ghost of Yotei stages this tale yet again, to the point where we find ourselves almost indifferent to it. We’ve already heard this story, we know how it works, we know who will pay the price, and we know that the ending will be bittersweet.

While its narrative may not be entirely convincing, Ghost of Yotei has another powerful weapon up its sleeve: its gameplay. Building on Tsushima’s already highly polished formula, Yotei replaces its posture mechanics with a whole range of weapons. Whereas Jin excelled with the sword, Atsu masters a wider range of blades, each suited to specific types of enemies. Fueled by her thirst for revenge, she impales, slices, and executes anyone in her path in a cocktail of sensations and sound effects of rare finesse. Each combat scenario is an opportunity to use a different tool, whether it’s for frontal combat or infiltration. In addition to all these ideas, which have been refined, Yotei also has a few new features, but they remain very timid: picking up and throwing weapons on the ground, the whole sake mechanic that allows you to regain action points at the cost of Atsu’s sobriety, and of course the wolf that will join in during certain fights. Beneath the visual and playful surface, enemies also have a few more brain cells and no longer hesitate to attack in groups, keeping you on your guard. The action sandbox here is robust, with a few innovative touches here and there, but safety quickly emerges as the watchword.

This safety is also found in the many activities offered by Ezo, some of which are the same as in Tsushima: hot springs, bamboo… haikus are replaced by sumi-e (painting on parchment), okay. But overall, this selection seems very iterative rather than innovative. Once again, there are some new features: wolf dens, bounties… But they remain very timid.

Despite the obvious diversity on offer here, it’s hard not to feel that we’ve already done all these things before. In 2020, on the island of Tsushima. 

But is that really such a bad thing?

Despite a rather heavy sense of déjà vu, Ghost of Yotei retains a rare charm in video games. This is thanks to elements that were already more or less present in Tsushima, but which have lost none of their appeal. The first is its artistic direction. Praise has been heaped on Ghost of Yotei’s saturated colors, lighting, and incredibly polished visual and sound effects. The wild beauty of Ezo left to its own devices, far from the center of power, is a delight to the eye while serving as a backdrop to the story. I’m not a player who’s keen on screenshots and photo modes, yet Ghost of Yotei is perhaps the title with the most screenshots in my console’s media library. All the more so as this beauty serves to highlight the despicable hold that the Six of Yotei have over Ezo: the cherry blossom fields scarred by war. The contrast between the reality of a Japan slowly opening its doors to the outside world and the fragile beauty of the island is reinforced. Yotei also continues to masterfully capture the mystique that surrounds the country. The shrines, the fox dens, accompanied by the discreet but necessary soundtrack that adds to the game’s artistic flair, our wanderings, though firmly rooted in reality, are inhabited by something more, which is there, in the breath of the wind, in the unreal colors of the leaves and flowers, in the dark light of a storm cloud, but always in a restrained manner. One of the great witnesses to this mysticism is the she-wolf. Like a protective spirit, she follows Atsu, sometimes fighting alongside her and even going so far as to save her life in extremis. She is always there, somewhere, as if her parents were still watching over the heroine from beyond the grave. However, the activities that strengthen our bond with her are firmly rooted in reality: we track down groups of soldiers responsible for poaching, before freeing our friend’s canine companions. The mystical is present, but in moderation.

And that’s the strength of Sucker Punch. The muscle that the studio flexes: restraint. The map is large, with lots of activities. Yes, but never too much. We don’t feel overwhelmed or crushed by the mass of quests, bounties, and mountains to climb. Yotei’s restraint is its strength. It’s the same strength that made us love Ghost of Tsushima so much, and which means that, even though the two games share many similarities, we’re happy to dive back into this version of Japan. Even more powerful is the way the game guides us towards this restraint. In the density and quantity of its content, of course, but also in its pace. By giving us a few seconds after each quest, activity, or cutscene to refocus, admire the landscape, and fully absorb what we’ve just experienced, climbed, or fought. 

Finally, there are still some good innovative ideas in the Yotei license, but they are really underused. One example is the sake mechanic mentioned earlier. Exploring this idea further would have allowed Atsu’s fighting style to be more distinct from Jin’s, while also offering a fantasy element that is far removed from the noble samurai. That of the bounty hunter ronin, who spends all his money in taverns, living day to day in his quest for revenge. Even from a thematic point of view, the two protagonists would have been diametrically opposed, and the contrast between them would have offered a fascinating insight into the path taken over the 300 years that have elapsed between the two games.

The pleasure Yotei provides is not so much based on itself, but on the fact that it brings back the things that made us love Sucker Punch’s open and romanticized Japan five years ago. No matter what aspect of the game you look at—visuals, gameplay, open world—the feelings are almost the same. But if all these elements are there, then that means all its qualities are there too. Yotei gives us the impression of standing not on its own two feet, but on the shoulders of Tsushima.

Is this a problem? Some, ourselves included, would say no. Sucker Punch successfully cracked the Ubisoft-style open world in 2020, and the quality of the result is well established, even more so in the more polished version that is Yotei. Quests, points of interest, and side stories are presented in a much more organic way, through NPC dialogues and conversations overheard in inns. Combat is more satisfying and flashier thanks to Atsu’s new arsenal of weapons, which even includes a couple of firearms. And the open world, as familiar as it may be, hasn’t aged a bit thanks to the dense areas and Sucker Punch’s restraint. The map and its icons are discreet, and the quest rewards are tangible. It only takes about 50 hours to get the game’s Platinum trophy, which is almost low for this kind of reward. And that’s the game’s greatest strength: its restraint. Yotei doesn’t overwhelm us, doesn’t overwhelm us, doesn’t turn into a full-time job (wink), but remains a contained, measured experience.

But on the other hand… Sucker Punch managed to refine and make the Ubisoft-style open world more digestible in 2020. What other universe, what other systems or structures could have been offered to us if the studio hadn’t played the much safer card that is Yotei? Knowing their history, we can’t help but regret not having been given a game, for example, with choices. I mentioned Second Son in the introduction, and the overused theme of revenge. It was the perfect opportunity to offer a similar morality system, allowing us to fully embrace our bloodthirsty side, or make peace with our inner knight… sorry, white ronin. This omission is all the more frustrating given that morality was already central to Jin Sakai’s story, yet the player had no control over the path taken by the samurai turned shinobi.

Ghost of Yotei joins the club of “PlayStation sequels” that remain somewhat disappointing when compared to the magic, audacity, innovation, and near-perfection in the execution of a new idea offered by the “first ones.” However, the foundation on which they are built remains so solid and enjoyable that a second ride around the merry-go-round is not too much of a hardship. Spider-Man 2, Ragnarok, more recently Death Stranding 2, and now Ghost of Yotei. All these games seem to have gone through the same mill. They have lost none of their charm, and better still, the latter has been refined and perfected thanks to the mastery of the teams, more powerful hardware, and simply the standard of quality that has risen over the years. However, as dazzled as we may be by their surfaces, upon closer inspection we realize that these sequels rely heavily on the comfort and security created by the reputation, systems, and innovations of their predecessors.

Fear of risk? Creative bankruptcy? A little of both? It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact reason or reasons for this trend. It goes without saying that there are significant financial stakes attached to all these games, and perhaps they are the basis for the redundancy we see. Or perhaps the studios, emboldened by their success but also weighed down by it, are taking refuge in what made them successful, rather than continuing to experiment, take chances, and make risks. At this stage, we continue to appreciate these iterations rather than innovations, but how long will it be before they are no longer enough to satisfy the growing appetite of their audience?