Ghost of Yōtei is Sony's surprise State of Play sucker punch; the winds are in our favour
Sony's spectral shogunate moves four centuries and two-thousand kilometres from Tsushima, showcasing painterly panoramas of alpines, flames, and a fanged, yet fluffy companion.
I found Ghost of Tsushima to be something of a Rashomon-esque experience. Upon pondering the memories I drew from it, my tone oscilates wildly: I can recall riding my noble steed through fields of sumptuous fidelity, inspired by the strings of a score most inspiring - before returning to my regrettable gripes on its evident presentation issues. Letterboxed - or panoramic - borders would appear during cutscenes, providing encounters with stronger filmic credibility; not all were bespoke in their cinematography. Conversations adjunct to the main story were captured at a strange distance, with the characters themselves barely animated in their expressions. Conversely, gameplay would deliver ferocious, bloody battles, choreographed with poetic grace. Initiating these conflicts, however, would require parsing a map predicated upon the last decade of open-world design philosophy, though diegetic waypoints were substituted for gusts of wind. Conceptually, it delivered an experience akin to a haiku accidentally imbued with an extra syllable: in the spirit, though not entirely on key.
However, did I spend more time in photo mode than live combat, perhaps even in real-life photography? Undoubtedly.
Granted, Sucker Punch’s previous experience concerned yarns of surreptitious raccoons and electric dreams; raising their profile to the domain of Kurosawa, or explicitly his mode, represented a drastic evolution in storytelling. Regarding the latter, protagonist Jin Sakai - graduate of the Batman School of Soliloquy - served as a worthy foil for an intricate combat scheme, weaving swordplay with stealth in a suitably smooth manner. However, the rather conventional tale of morality against duty was materialised to justify the oxymoronic nature of a sneaky samurai - substantiated to a welcome end, nonetheless.
Regardless, Ghost of Tsushima proved to be astonishingly successful, selling 9.73 million copies to June 2022, before becoming the most purchased title in the U.S. of May 2024 upon its Steam debut. In this time, jidaigeki - a term denoting Japanese period drama - have significantly grown in profile, due perhaps most prominently to an interest in Ghost of Tsushima’s textural kin: Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri is comfortably perched atop Letterboxd’s Top 250, PlayStation published Team Ninja’s Rise of the Ronin amidst Sucker Punch’s hiatus, and FX’s Shōgun has emerged as a genuine successor to Game of Thrones’ palace intrigue - ahead of House of the Dragon! Thus, with our sake flask running dry, the fine merchants at Sony delivered a freshly distilled trailer delving into the future of the franchise - literally.
Ghost of Yōtei takes its audience to the year 1603, three centuries on from the rogue herocism of Jin Saki - now, depending on your beliefs, an actual ghost. Set in an isolate reserve of Japan entitled Ezo (present day Hokkaido), we asume the mantle of Atsu: a weathered rōnin caught in a transitional moment in Japanese history. If you are familiar with the aformentioned Shōgun series, you may be aware of the central player: Tokugawa Ieyasu - or Hiroyuki Sanada. Briefly, Tokugawa vanquished his enemies at the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600; three years later, the emperor granted him the title of … supreme military commander, or Shōgun. With his appointment, the Edo Period began. Tokugawa consolidated his power in Edo (Tokyo), ensuring his damiyo (vassals) presided over their land with great deference to himself. Nevertheless, I disgress - lest you want to know more, where I can direct you to more extensive sources. In shorter terms, Tokugawa curbed foreign influence, marshalled trade, and established Tokyo as the country’s true capital.
Ezo, however, was not under Tokugawa’s purview: it was untamed, a shimmering preserve home to 羊蹄山 (Yōtei-zan, or Mount Yōtei). Were I to draw upon its significance to Sucker Punch’s successor, its centrality may serve as a showcase for the ultimate grandeur of the PlayStation 5; a medley of lively biomes may dance around its body. On the avoidance of a direct sequel in favour of an anthological model, commercial calculus it may be: using a brand name to gather commercial capital, though without resting upon its prior laurels, is a suitable antidote for a challenging moment for Triple A. Yes, there are moments of ‘yes, and’ - dual-wield katana, a cute, yet ferocious wolf companion, fancier rays of light, a ramen western score - but the revelatory transposition of its predecessor’s principles to an entirely new era, protagonist, and island is undeniably ambitious. If the sense of spiritual isolation can be met with similarly cathartic episodes of slashing, slicing, and bamboo striking, I will begin my trek to Hokkaido with expediency.