Early but plentiful reviews for Ghost of Yotei have developer Sucker Punch's latest open-world samurai game tracking a full four points above Ghost of Tsushima, but even that score is barely enough to earn it a seat at the top 20 table in the white-hot year of 2025.
At the time of writing, 102 critic reviews of Ghost of Yotei have been recorded on Metacritic, which puts the game at an overall score of 87. Ghost of Tsushima landed at 83 after 122 critic reviews.
It's a similar story on Open Critic, where Ghost of Yotei has an average score of 89 after 66 critic reviews, while Ghost of Tsushima is sitting at 84 with 197 critic reviews. There's obviously much more room for changes in this data set, but the Metacritic average suggests the score won't shift dramatically.
Right near the top of that list of critics, you'll find our own Ghost of Yotei review. Andy praises the game's beautiful open world and slick combat, with new protagonist Atsu more than living up to Tsushima's Jin Sakai, and docking just a few points for some pacing wobbles.
Metacritic scores, in particular, can hold considerable value and sway in the plans and politics of AAA developers and publishers. There's no telling what internal benchmarks Sony or Sucker Punch had set for Ghost of Yotei, but scoring several points above the previous game on a comparable – and, for AAA, downright lean – budget ain't a bad place to start.
That being said, 2025 has been such a relentless marathon of top-shelf games – Silksong! Hades 2! Clair Obscur! Blue Prince! Donkey Kong! – that Ghost of Yotei is hovering around the top 20 mark for the year.
On Metacritic, it's currently sitting at 22, but that's with the re-released versions of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom misleadingly holding the number one and two spots. Once you remove those, as you should, every game gets two free ranks, with Hades 2 currently wearing the crown for actual new games. (In fairness, a look at 2024's top Metacritic scores shows that an 87 would push Yotei almost into the 30s, though some re-releases gum those works as well.)
Open Critic is a little different, though it too is bogged down by Tears of the Kingdom's Switch 2 edition at number one, and puts Ghost of Yotei at 16th place for the year.
Ghost of Yotei devs say they weren't aiming to make their Tsushima sequel longer, but improve its "sense of grandness and scale."
