Ghost of Yotei Review – A Generational Video Game

The long-awaited wait has finally borne fruit. For five years since the launch of Ghost of Tsushima, fans have been eagerly waiting to once again take up the role of a ghost, where being a slave to honor is not a choice. On October 2, 2025, Sucker Punch, along with PlayStation Studios, launched Ghost of Yotei, set a few centuries later than the events of Ghost of Tsushima. And how has that experience fared for the gamers? Let’s find out at our official review for Ghost of Yotei at Gameffine.

The Ghost of Aura Farming

Ghost of Yotei is incredibly straightforward, but it never felt bland due to the depth the game contains in all of its arcs. In Ghost of Yotei, you play as Atsu, a pretty chill child who has multiple hobbies and has a promising career choice of being a stable master someday. Unfortunately, the dream was quickly robbed of her by Lord Saito and his five accomplices, making the infamous group called the Yotei 6. The group inhumanely murders Atsu’s parents in front of her eyes and shoots his brother point-blank with a flintlock pistol.

Atsu is then stabbed and hung on the family tree, left to be made an example. But she perseveres and survives. 16 years later, she forged herself in the wars that ravaged the lands of Japan. But now she’s back, and the hunt is on. Making an example of the Yotei 6 this time around, she writes Kanji of each of the Yotei 6 and wears it as a band around her waist. The bloodlust is so powerful and her aura so merciless, she is quickly brandished – The Onryo.

Atsu is termed a little wolf by her father, and coincidentally, she runs into a wolf whose pack is being hunted by the Yotei 6 for unknown reasons. They forge a strange connection, making a bloodthirsty wolf ready to back Atsu in every possible situation. If having a wolf as a sidekick was not cool enough, Atsu will forge bonds with talents all across the land, making her wolf pack just troublesome enough for the slaughter of Clan Saito. This thirst for revenge in the most “Aura-Farmable” way possible has truly blown away our minds.

The Ghost that Painted Yotei Red

Atsu is an exceptionally talented woman. When not chain-assassinating men twice her size within a few seconds, you can find her painting. Painting Sumi-e? Oh yes, that’s a side hobby too, passed down by her father, but we are talking about painting the land of Yotei red with the blood of her enemies. Atsu is a part-time Yotei six hunter and a full-time bounty/Saito soldier hunter. She will willfully engage with every soldier that serves Saito, but luckily enough, is constantly hunted by men after her bounty. Imagine an army that is against the Shogun, forgetting their true goal to hunt you down, jobless mercenaries after you, along with the Yotei 6 running for their life while you simply perform side tasks.

What tasks? Well, quite a few, like – Discovering shrines, unlocking Altar for upgrades, Sumi-e, playing Shamisen, parkour, liberating, signing up for weapon courses, and much more.

And who’s hunting the Yotei 6 then? Atsu’s constant aura farming has every member of the Yotei 6 running for their life. While everyone may act as if she’s only a woman. Soon, she one-ups Altair from Assassin’s Creed, and instead of wiping the blood of the choking enemy with a feather, Atsu wipes the blood of the hunted Yotei on her death-marked belt on the victim’s name.

The world of Yotei is a perfect symphony of how it welcomes players of all types. You want to run through simply hunting the Yotei 6? No worries, go straight into the missions, and you will be out hunting the next one without worrying about what happens to the region. But as per Aura Farming rules, if you want to make sure every single NPC knows the horror that Onryo puts down upon her enemies, then there is a massive amount of content that comes with each Yotei 6 member you hunt. All of these activities together help you liberate the entire region, while you gracefully equip game-changing weapons that unlock even deeper levels of combat. Atsu will do so much for the people, even though her goal is only the Yotei 6; people will start worshipping her.

As for the combat, compared to Ghost of Tsushima, it gets even deeper while carrying forward the same symphony. The combat feels more like dancing with your weapons, with the intent of slaughter. Once again, not only do you have the ability to do perfect parries, you can also perform perfect dodges, giving you an insane advantage in every fight you go into. But instead of multiple stances, you now get to equip multiple weapons. You get to carry – Good ol’ Katana, Dual Katana, Kusarigama, Spear, Odachi, Flintlock Pistol, Rifle, Small Bow, Big Bow, and the same returning arsenal of throwables for Tsushima. Are you restrained or forced into equipping two at once? Nope, you’re carrying all of it at once. Welcome back, CJ from GTA San Andreas. We won’t ask where you are keeping all those weapons, but we are happy that you came packing.

The enemies feel more real than ever, as they now constantly respond to how you attack and move on the battlefield. This gets even more intense as you progress and face even more difficult enemies. Even your enemies are now actively deflecting your moves and dodging to cut you down. Being unpredictable actually wins you the battle, and yes, you are going to use every weapon that you’re carrying equally. If you’re not using your options enough, you’re definitely going to die more than you have to.

The charms system is pretty much the same, with a few being actually really goated. My favorite one is the Charm of Last Stance, whose only job is to auto-heal. Which means if you’re about to accept a lethal blow, the charm will manage your healing, giving you insane freedom to only focus on combat.

The duels are much more tight, fans from Tsushima can really start off at the Lethal difficulty, which is just outright unfair. You get chopped to death in one combo, but your enemy is built like a wall in all fights. But as a veteran from Tsushima, this is the right way. But if you’re just chilling, even the medium difficulty is enough challenge for a thrilling experience.

For combat-hungry veterans who crave Soulslike games all their lives, Takezo awaits.

The world itself now feels more dense, instead of Tsushima, where civilization barely exists. People are more dynamic and constantly react to your presence. Scared or calling you names, you feel alive more than ever inside the game. Events and side-missions are also no more a marker on the map, they are only presented when you walk into an NPC, who obviously will shout for your attention. Some missions have the space to be dynamic enough that a core task may have already been dealt with changes how the tasks progress. You are constantly hunted, not just by patrol, but by multiple enemy groups that want you gone.

The game overall isn’t much different from Tsushima, but takes the same formula and polishes it to be even more fun, engaging, and thoroughly enjoyable.

I Can’t Stop Taking Photos

Ghost of Yotei is outright the most beautiful game to exist right now in the video game market. And I say this after spending 90+ hours in Death Stranding 2, a title I absolutely adore. I really thought Assassin’s Creed Shadow’s Awaji expansion had truly nailed it with how great it looks, but it is nowhere near what Yotei is doing.

Ghost of Yotei doesn’t go for an ambience or focus on how a particular tree should look, but is instead produced and directed with a pure cinematic intent. Each screenshot at any given point in time always feels like a frame right out of a movie. The color of the sky, the constant drops of foliage, and cruising birds of different species in each region make the world of gaming feel so much more alive than I have ever felt before.

Each of the 4 regions that you will step into feels 100% different from the others and is truly going to blow your mind. The plains are so vividly massive that cinema bars are added to give you more tighter and faster experience while galloping. But if you’re in the dangerous snow, full frames with light music are given so you can actually focus on your path and not fall into an ambush by 7 shinobis at any given point in time.

The OSTs are fine, and unfortunately didn’t hit me as hard as Ghost of Tsushima did, but they have so much soul that you’ll still find it perfectly fitting. But what made up this problem for me is the feature of Watanabe mode. This is basically replacing your basic theme music with Lo-fi samurai music, which absolutely slaps. The constant Aura Farming with lo-fi beats is everything and more I can expect from a game.

The photo mode has been given good justice, with enough options and tools to play with to get the perfect shots to fill up the gallery with an insane amount of media. Each fight is like a movie, and a cutscene that feels like once in a lifetime moment. There is pure emotion in each cinematic with thrilling realism, powerful voice acting, and graceful transition into combat.

Real Talk

Ghost of Yotei is one of the best titles you can play this year, and is absolutely worth every buck that you spend. This 50-hour title will give you the complete package of a true AAA experience. You’ll probably spill enough blood that an entire region could be painted red, and still have the Yotei 6 running for their lives. The amount of breathtaking views this game puts you along with the depth of characters and stories, truly will leave you longing for more by the time you’re done with it. Ghost of Yotei has our blessing to go for the GOTY title with the full intent to win.