After putting 200+ hours into Borderlands 4 (God help me) I finally played through another of my most anticipated games of 2025: Ghost of Yōtei, the sequel to Suckerpunch’s previous open-world title (and for my money the best in the genre) Ghost of Tsushima. You can imagine I had extremely high expectations for for this follow-up, and I’m happy to say that it met them!

Short Synopsis

Set in early 1600’s around the eponymous mountain, Ghost of Yōtei’ follows Atsu, a woman hellbent on killing a group of scoundrels who killed her family and left her for dead when she was a child called “the Yōtei’ Six.” As Atsu starts crossing names off of her list, her legend as an onryō (vengeful spirit) grows along with the number of invaluable allies who also want to put the Yōtei Six six feet under.

The Good

Story: Ghost of Yōtei’s story isn’t particularly novel when compared to the other tales of revenge in video games, movies or books but it’s a solid one backed by a handful of endearing characters. It works in almost every way it should, even if I can’t help comparing it to Ghost of Tsushima’s; Jin Sakai’s journey of “abandoning” his honor as a samurai to save his people from an otherwise unconquerable enemy was just a tad more engaging, to me at least. 

Music: The score brilliantly captures the serene beauty of the Ezo when exploring or riding on horseback, Atsu’s pain as we see tragic end of her childhood unfold through flashbacks, and the epic, tension-filled fights between Atsu and those who are studpid enough to try and keep the Onryō from her prize. I have yet experimented with the Watanabe Mode, which replaces the score with lo-fi tracks inspired by the director of Cowboy Bebop and Space Dandy, but now that I’ve finished the campaign I’m very excited about to giving it a go.

The Great

Exploration: Ghost of Yōtei has a very similar, organic structure to Ghost of Tsushima (which I will call GoT from now on) when it comes to exploration. There’s a map you can look at with icons to track, but I rarely used it. Instead I would just pick a direction to go, often just heading towards the next story mission until I heard the chirp of a golden bird, the playful chittering of a fox, the howl of a wolf or a passerby asking for help. All of those are signs to follow and will reward you with new upgrades, rewards or valuable resources for improving Atsu’s lethality. It was already a borderline perfect system in GoT, so I’m not surprised Suckepunch didn’t try to reinvent the wheel here.

Combat: The combat builds upon the excellent framework set by GoT and improves upon it in a variety of ways. Instead of changing stances with your sword to combat different kinds of enemies or weapons, you switch between a shockingly large variety of bladed, throwing and ranged weapons. There were at least three separate times where I thought “okay, I finally must have unlocked all the weapons by now, right?” before finding yet another instrument of death to add to my collection. Most of these weapons all have their own combos and skill trees as well, with some of the later abilities being total game-changers. It doesn’t matter if I’m shattering an annoying enemy’s shield with my kusarigama, cutting down a giant enemy with the almost Atsu-sized ōdachi or setting a whole group on fire with a scorch bomb, it all feels great and each of tool of destruction has a niche where they really come in clutch.

Visuals & Photo Mode: Ghost of Yōtei is a stunningly beautiful game. There are tons of gorgeous imagery, landscapes and the game’s photo mode can capture all of them with the best angles. The amount of time I spent taking screenshots when playing this game is honestly kind of embarrassing.

The Not So Great

The Ending: I know, I know: I put the story in “the good” section. But that’s because I did enjoy it overall! However, I do feel the need to mention that there are two specific choices made in the very final part of the very final main mission that don’t quite work. They added to the tension, but also didn’t make a whole lot of sense if you take a moment to think about them.

In Conclusion

I’m torn between choosing Ghost of Yōtei, Borderlands 4 or Doom: The Dark Ages as my favorite game of 2025, but the fact Yōtei’s in the conversation at all says plenty. Ditto for choosing between it and GoT as my favorite open world game of all time. I cannot recommend it enough, and now eagerly await the cooperative expansion, Ghost of Yōtei: Legends, which is set to bless the PS5 in 2026.