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Ghost of Yotei goes to show that games set in feudal Japan are like buses – so many come along at once, and they are stunning pieces of technology. A lot was said when Assassin's Creed Shadows came out about it following Ghost of Tsushima, but it did manage to stand apart and feel like its own thing. Still, even though development timelines are very long, after seeing the latest exciting reveals for Ghost of Yotei ahead of its October 2 release, I hope it can learn from Ubisoft's own take on the setting.
Both developers have, of course, been aware of the comparisons. Ghost of Yotei's developers have called it "great", in fact, as "we're big fans of feudal Japan". These open world games may be huge adventures – but what's better than one huge adventure? A lifetime of them. Comparisons between Ghost of Yotei and Assassin's Creed Shadows feel even more warranted as Yotei, moving forward in time compared to Tsushima, brings the settings a lot closer. Ghost of Yotei is set in 1603, and AC Shadows began in 1581. Still, there's ample opportunity for Ghost of Yotei to move the genre even further forward, and build on what came before.
5. Evolving stealth and bloodshed together
One of the areas Assassin's Creed Shadows really set itself apart was by having two protagonists – Naoe, focused on stealth, and Yasuke, focused on samurai combat. Ghost of Tsushima was always about balancing the two in one character, Jin Sakai, struggling to reconcile his concept of samurai honor with the way of the ghost to liberate his home.
It looks like Ghost of Yotei's Atsu is pushing this even further, while, thankfully, being a bit less precious about using stealthy techniques. With a whole armory of weaponry, Atsu will be very capable in full-on scraps using katana, kusarigama, odachi, and more. But I'm also hoping, like Jin, she's just as competent at weaving sneaky 'ghost' traps into those battles to turn the tide in her favor, even as she enacts extreme violence with sheer skill.
If AC Shadows was all about splitting up these pillars to stand on their own, I want Ghost of Yotei to go the other direction, weaving them together even more. I bet Atsu's kaginawa grapple hook could be plenty of fun for it, too.
4. Hunting the Yotei Six
Interestingly, it seems like Ghost of Yotei and Assassin's Creed Shadows may share a similar narrative structure – at least in the game's early stages. After revenge, Atsu must hunt down the masked 'Yotei Six', similar to the revenge quest to assassinate the masked 'Shinbakfu'. In Assassin's Creed Shadows, this was a fun enough freeform challenge, but some of your targets were definitely more compelling than others, the way you could tackle them in any order, sometimes robbing moments of weight and emotional bite, with them being over surprisingly quickly.
I hope that each of the Yotei Six in Ghost of Yotei can be more compelling nemeses for Atsu to tackle. The reduced number definitely makes me hopeful that hunting them down will have more impact. On the other hand, this non-linear structure is new for Ghost of Yotei, so I'm seriously hoping that Ghost of Yotei can learn from Assassin's Creed's approach to letting you off the leash, which wasn't as possible in the first game thanks to Tsushima Island's discrete regions. After all, it's an approach that's been around since Assassin's Creed Origins, and it feels like a defining feature Ubisoft has brought to the open world genre. This is a big chance for Sucker Punch to really match up.
3. Going off-road
One of my biggest annoyances with Assassin's Creed Shadows wasn't one I expected to have from an open world game – the denseness of some of its forests meant going off-road was almost always a no-go. You'd just get caught on geometry or slip down slopes, unable to clamber around too much.
While I don't need Ghost of Yotei to have loads of extra clambering, I hope it's able to better juggle exploring the world around Mount Yotei with the majesty of galloping on horseback through beautiful environments. This is already an area where Ghost of Tsushima excelled, but given Ghost of Yotei is looking to be even more open with its more freeform revenge structure, I'm hoping this can continue. This might get tricky in more mountainous regions – after all, Yotei is one – but I hate the feeling of being forced to go too out of the way when navigating through open worlds. Occasionally, it can be a fun challenge, but not when it boils down to plotting a route across existing roads. With the series' wind-based navigation, though, I'm hoping this continues to be handled better here than in Assassin's Creed Shadows.
2. Feeling jumpy
It felt like Assassin's Creed Shadows took a leaf from Ghost of Tsushima already with its yellow paint parkour challenges, which proved to be a surprising highlight for me. After all, as a fan of Sucker Punch's Sly Raccoon series, which put the studio on my radar back on the PS2, I'm always up to see them get jumpy.
I just hope Atsu is able to pick up Naoe's baton when it comes to the variety on offer with the challenges. While Ghost of Tsushima's controls were great, sometimes Jin wasn't quite as precise to control as you'd expect from the Sly devs, and some challenges could get a bit samey. While I'd have loved more of these in Assassin's Creed Shadows, each one there feels really distinct. When it comes to Ghost of Yotei's shrine challenges (or even better, if there's great variety in even where they are), I want to see Atsu channel that energy to make even more death-defying leaps to really hammer home she's more than just deadly in combat, but an acrobatic menace as well.
1. Less loot, please
Though the amount of looting in Ghost of Tsushima was far less than in Assassin's Creed Shadows, it was still enough to annoy me (it was mostly centered around resources for upgrades). I love open worlds, but I'm getting sick of combing through every box, chest, or sack imaginable to collect minuscule resource rewards or bad equipment. All the good stuff will only be rewards for fancier challenges anyway, so all the tiny looting can get really annoying. It can be ignorable until it isn't – there's nothing worse than feeling like you really need an upgrade but not having enough rocks or wood or whatever.
While Atsu has more equipment than her ghostly predecessor in Ghost of Yotei, it's not entirely clear if that means more loot. After all, even without lots of differently colored gear, it could mean more upgrades for each tool for more resources. I certainly hope that's not the case. Sometimes less can be more, and I want to be immersed in a space as gorgeous as the ones in Ghost of Yotei without being encouraged to ransack everything not nailed down. Keep them feeling special, like the excellent cosmetics in the first game.
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