Ghost of Yotei is due out later this year, and as with Ghost of Tsushima, the developers at Sucker Punch want the open-world game to "deliver a respectful representation" of Japan – despite the fact that the team is based in the US. To show how they've gone about that, the team has revealed the details of its field trips to scout the game's setting.
"As an American, I had primarily seen the country through the lens of beloved classic samurai movies," game director Nate Fox admits in a PlayStation Blog post. "But actually going there, feeling the wind on your face, smelling pine forests, and meeting locals is deeply inspiring."
For the original game, Fox says Sucker Punch "wanted to do right by the reality of Tsushima's history, even though we were going to tell a fictional story in a digital version of Tsushima that was not a stone for stone recreation of the island." A big part of that was "listening to our cultural advisors and by doing research," and they've taken a similar approach for Ghost of Yotei.
Hokkaido's combination of "natural beauty and a sense of danger," alongside its real-world history, made it an "easy" choice for the game's setting. The team took "two reference gathering trips" to the region.
They were especially impressed by Mount Yotei, Fox says, "which the Ainu call 'the Female Mountain.' Of course, on the trip we’d been thinking a lot about our hero. Hearing the Ainu name for the mountain really bonded it to Atsu. For us, Yotei became a symbol of Hokkaido. While for Atsu, it's a symbol of home and of the family she lost. This process of being there, talking about the game with locales, then synthesizing new ideas is what made the trip so fulfilling."
Fox admits that "as a bunch of Americans," the team "knew how ignorant we were about Japanese culture. To help start to solve that problem we met with a wealth of knowledgeable individuals and visited important cultural sites."
Clearly, Sucker Punch's dedication to getting the details right has been appreciated, as Fox – alongside creative director Jason Connell – was made a permanent tourism ambassador for the island of Tsushima in 2021. Here's hoping that the team's efforts with Ghost of Yotei are worth of similar respect.
Tsushima is one of the best open-world games around, and Yotei is one of the biggest upcoming PS5 games on the horizon.
