Ghost of Yōtei
Atsu comes back to Ezo years after a gang called the Yōtei Six killed her family, and she has a list with their names on it. In Ghost of Yōtei, a third-person open-world action-adventure, you hunt them down across the lands around Mount Yōtei. You pick the order for most of the hunt, and you fight with swords, bows and, later on, matchlock guns. Sucker Punch Productions developed the game, and Sony Interactive Entertainment released it on October 2, 2025. It's a standalone sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, with a new protagonist and a new setting.
Top 3 Reasons to Play
- Five melee weapons. Atsu starts with one katana and picks up dual katana, a yari, a kusarigama and an ōdachi as the story goes on. Some enemies are much easier to beat with one weapon than another, and you can swap between them mid-fight.
- Non-linear main story. After the opening missions, you decide whether to go after the Oni, the Kitsune or the Saito brothers next. Leads come from interrogating enemies, helping settlers and talking to people on the road.
- Kurosawa, Miike and Watanabe modes. The black-and-white Kurosawa Mode is back, and two new visual modes are inspired by directors Takashi Miike and Shinichirō Watanabe. The weather shifts as you play too, with snow, rain and the aurora borealis over the mountains.
Story and Lore
The story is set in 1603 in Ezo, now called Hokkaido, which at the time was mostly outside Japanese rule. On the Night of the Burning Tree, a gang led by the renegade samurai Lord Saito killed Atsu's family and left her pinned to a burning ginkgo tree with her father's katana. She survived, worked as a mercenary in the south for sixteen years and then came home for revenge.
Her first kill nearly costs her her life. When she recovers anyway, people start calling her an onryō, a vengeful spirit from Japanese folklore, and Saito puts a bounty on her. The rumors bring her more enemies, but they also bring settlers and outcasts who start following her and become known as the Wolf Pack.
Saito, meanwhile, is raising an army to take the whole island and calls himself the Shogun of the North. He's at war with the Matsumae clan, whose samurai stay loyal to the shogun.
The Echoes of Sekigahara expansion fills in part of Atsu's missing years. It switches between present-day Ezo, where she runs into Nagato, someone from her past, and flashbacks to her time at the Battle of Sekigahara.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Combat
Tsushima's stance system has been replaced with a weapon counter system. Each melee weapon works best against certain enemy types, and you unlock new ones by training with weapon masters around Ezo. You still parry combo attacks and dodge unblockable ones. Disarms are new: Atsu can lose her weapon or knock an enemy's out of their hands, and she can pick up dropped weapons and throw them.
Other gear includes:
- Hankyu and yumi bows for fast and long-range shots
- A tanegashima matchlock rifle and a tanzutsu matchlock pistol
- A grappling hook, available from the very beginning
- A wolf that can be summoned to help in open combat or on stealth approaches
Exploring Ezo
Six main regions make up the map: the Yōtei Grasslands, Tokachi Range, Ishikari Plain, Nayoro Wilds, Teshio Ridge and Oshima Coast, plus a climb to the summit of Mount Yōtei itself. The guiding wind points the way to objectives, and playing a song on the shamisen changes where it blows.
At camp, Atsu can heal, restore spirit, cook food for stat boosts, craft ammo and trade with vendors. A lot of the side content makes her permanently stronger. Hot springs, bamboo strikes and fox dens return from the first game. New activities include sumi-e ink painting, a coin-flicking gambling game called zeni hajiki, and bounty hunts.
Post-Launch Modes
- New Game Plus (free update, November 24, 2025): replay the campaign with every weapon, armor set and ability you earned, on new harder difficulty options. A currency called Ghost Flowers buys more than 30 cosmetics and 10 charms from a dedicated vendor.
- Ghost of Yōtei Legends (free update, March 10, 2026): online co-op with four classes (Samurai, Archer, Mercenary and Shinobi). Survival pits up to four players against enemy waves, Story offers 12 two-player missions punctuated by four-player Incursions, and a Raid sets the team against the Dragon and Lord Saito.
- Most Wanted (arrives October 1, 2026, with the Complete Edition): a single-player roguelike survival mode. Pick one of four characters, including Jin Sakai with all four of his signature stances, take bounties of rising difficulty and unlock perks between runs.
Characters and Factions
Atsu is voiced by Erika Ishii in English and Fairouz Ai in Japanese. The Yōtei Six are:
- The Snake: the first name crossed off the list
- The Oni: a warlord holding Ishikari Castle and its prisoners
- The Kitsune: Saito's shinobi, brewing wolfsbane poison in a northern fortress
- The Spider and the Dragon: Saito's sons
- Lord Saito: the gang's leader and the final confrontation of the campaign
Among her allies are Oyuki, a traveling shamisen player, and Hanbei, a former bounty hunter and old friend of her father who teaches her to fight with two katana. The Matsumae samurai are fighting Saito's army at the same time, and rōnin across Ezo want the bounty on Atsu's head.
Editions
All four editions come with the full base game. They differ in the extra content:
- Standard Edition: the base game.
- Digital Deluxe Edition: the base game plus The Snake's armor set, an alternate dye for the starting armor, a unique horse color and saddle dye, an in-game charm, a gold Sword Kit and an early unlock of Traveler's Maps, which reveal statues used to upgrade skills.
- Collector's Edition: all Digital Deluxe content (the game itself as a digital code) plus physical replicas of Atsu's Ghost mask, sash and katana tsuba, a foldable papercraft ginkgo tree, four art cards and a coin pouch for playing Zeni Hajiki at home.
- Complete Edition: the base game, Legends, all Digital Deluxe items and the Charm of Hokkyokusei. Echoes of Sekigahara and Most Wanted unlock through patch 2.0 on October 1, 2026, together with extra New Game Plus cosmetics, photo mode stamps and new Trophies.