Visiting the real-world locations that inspired places in video games can be a great way to see the world, but please don't go hiking up a mountain in shorts like this couple that went to Ghost of Yotei's namesake peak in Japan and had to be airlifted out of there.
On May 13, a British man and woman hiked up the Yotei mountain in Hokkaido and became trapped due to the cold weather. The man was wearing shorts and the woman was wearing a short-sleeved top, so they really weren't prepared for the cold weather toward the top of the 1,898-meter-high mountain.
As reported by UHB (spotted by Automaton), the couple had gotten to the ninth shelter on the mountain, some 1,750 meters up. It was the final one before the peak, but the cold weather and their lack of appropriate hiking gear prevented the couple from ascending much further. They called the police and were rescued by helicopter 30 minutes later.
The two apparently had no former experience mountain climbing, so it's pretty impressive they made it as far as they did. However, locals are expressing their annoyance at the tourists because mountain rescues are funded by local taxpayers. There are even petitions being made by Japanese politicians to require tourists to foot the bill for their rescues in the future.
This isn't the first time tourists have angered locals after visiting a video game location in Japan. The Watazumi Shrine found on Tsushima Island and believed to be the inspiration for Ghost of Tsushima's Scarlet Rock shrine recently banned all tourists after "an extremely serious and unforgivable act of disrespect was committed by a foreigner."
Ghost of Yotei is due out October 2, 2025, and is set 300 years after the original Ghost of Tsushima. It also features a new protagonist, Atsu, on a quest for revenge against the people that killed her family and left her pinned to a burning gingko tree.
Rather than getting stranded up a mountain, check out all the upcoming video game release dates and explore a new virtual world instead.
