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If there’s one thing that both Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yotei succeed at unconditionally, it’s delivering an incredible rendition of feudal Japan to explore. Many ingredients go into the secret sauce that is Sucker Punch’s art design, but it’s how they come together that creates the real magic. To discover more about the process, I got to sit down with art director Joanna Wang, who shed light on the team’s approach to bringing northern Japan to life through Ezo in Ghost of Yotei.
Where Ghost of Tsushima was set in the warmer climates of southern Japan, Yotei takes direct inspiration from the Hokkaido region, formerly known by the same moniker. Home of the titular Mount Yotei, frigid winters, and a markedly wilder, more dangerous ecosystem. It’s the perfect setting for a revenge tale of this kind, and while it shares some commonalities, it broadly stands in stark contrast to Tsushima’s more lush environments.
When asked why the team wanted to set Yotei in Ezo, Joanna discussed how the team was looking for an area of Japan that would best suit Atsu’s story. “When we finished Ghost of Tsushima, we spent a lot of time looking into what areas could have interesting settings in feudal Japan. 1603 is an exciting time period of change in Japan, which brings a lot of new additions. We were specifically looking for a place in the wilder north of Japan.”.
“At that time, they called Hokkaido Ezo, and is beyond the edge of Japan. The landscape was different, the nature and climate were also very different. Thick forests, rivers, harsh winters are all things that we feel create an interesting land to tell a story on. We feel it was a good fit for a lone wolf mercenary wandering in this vast land.”. A big part of this is of course the time period that Yotei is set in. It’s a time of uncertainty in Ezo as the shogun seeks to spread its influence throughout the country, and the old ways start to die out.
Joanna spoke about why time period is an important part of Yotei’s narrative; “We like to tell origin stories at Sucker Punch. You can see that in our other games and in this game. When we’re looking into the time period in conjunction with the location, if we make sure it fits the story, we know we can cook a pretty good soup and it all naturally comes together. We find a good balance for these things and it gives way to interesting and cool ideas – it gets put together pretty naturally.”.
If there’s one inspiration that’s clearer than any other in the Ghost games, it would have to be the franchise’s fondness for samurai cinema. Nothing is more emblematic of this than Ghost of Tsushima’s Kurosawa Mode, a visual mode that fundamentally alters the presentation of the game to imitate that of Akira Kurosawa’s works. While Kurosawa Mode makes its return in Yotei, Sucker Punch have doubled down on their love for these stories by including new modes.
Miike Mode dials the violence and grit of Yotei up to 11, while Watanabe Mode brings lo-fi beats reminiscent of Samurai Champloo score to listen to while you explore. When asked how deeply this genre impacted Ghost of Yotei’s story, Joanna explained that one of Sucker Punch’s goals is to make you feel like you are living inside of your favourite samurai films.
“We are huge fans of those Japanese samurai movies. One of our goals, even with Ghost of Tsushima, is to make you feel like you are living inside of your favourite samurai films. It’s a huge honour to have worked with the Kurosawa Estate in the first game to bring a lot of our strong inspirational pieces into the experience. Aside from that, we’ve also been looking at other films. It feels like we are paying tribute to other directors who were also hugely inspirational in the beginning.”.
“I’m sure you can already tell, but when you travel around the world on horseback we have those cinematic camera angles, it feels like you’re in a movie shot. And when you’re in a duel, the stillness of the two characters, looking at each other while the wind blows, it’s so cool to have those elements. The tension gets so high and it can break at any second in some of those scenes. A lot of those ideas all come from those movies, it’s something we really wanted to push even more in Ghost of Yotei.”.
Much like with Tsushima, Ghost of Yotei’s environments and cultural depictions have been informed by research trips to Japan conducted by Sucker Punch. Joanna has been fortunate enough to go on trips for both games, speaking to how approaches differed for each and how it helped to shape Yotei’s many environments. ” We’ve had multiple trips between working on Tsushima and Yotei, the latter of which were in Hokkaido. We’ve been sending a wide group of people on these trips, not just artists and directors. We also have rendering programmers, character artists, foliage artists, audio designers, and more.”.
“Everybody has a different perspective and is proficient in different areas, so different parts of the trips were uniquely inspiring to them. I went on both trips, but for Yotei, we travelled Hokkaido from the north to the south, to capture the feeling and progression of the game. We visited a number of areas but there was one moment that inspired me the most when it came to developing Ghost of Yotei. It was when we actually saw Mount Yotei itself. It was just on a quick stopover, but across from Lake Toya we could see the mountain capped with snow, towering over the rest of the land – nothing can compete with that, especially when it’s reflecting on the lake.”.
“It has the dreamy and magical feeling. The image of the reflection drifting in and out of the water is stuck in my head – it was so beautiful. We also had biome artists bring back some tree bark for texturing, and that was special because we got to bring back a real piece of Hokkaido to make our fictional version of it feel real. That connection is special to us.”.
Joanna also commented on how exploring Hokkaido helped to capture the structure of Ezo and its diverse environments in Ghost of Yotei. “When we looked at creating the map, we knew we wanted Mount Yotei in the centre and then give the player freedom in how they explore it. The shape of the map is drastically different to that of Tsushima, and we explored the idea of each region tying into a member of the Yotei Six visually.”.
“Ishikari Plain, for example, is home to The Oni. He’s a prideful samurai with paintings of himself inside his castle, and his main tool to incite fear is fire. Ishikari Plain itself and the villages within it are burnt, which is why we built the region is an orangey red forest. We pushed more on that fire theme, you feel the warmth and heat as you get deeper into the valley with all the red trees. It’s the gameplay and environment merging together to immerse you in the world and story.”.
Ghost of Tsushima was rightfully praised for the care and respect it took when it comes to honouring Japanese culture and depicting the Mongol Invasion. Much of that is thanks to the aforementioned trips, but also a Japanese cultural advisor to ensure Sucker Punch was headed in the right direction. The same applies here to Ghost of Yotei, but are hammered home even further by Yotei’s implementation of the Ainu, a group indigenous to northern Japan and south-eastern Russia.
Joanna revealed the importance of the Ainu and their culture in Yotei; “We were lucky to have a cultural advisor of Tsushima and now Yotei as well. We know there’s a big responsibility that comes with telling a story that’s outside our own culture, there’s a pretty big gap there. We had an Ainu advisor working with us too, looking at how we design their town, how we depict their culture, build their houses, and more.”.
“Even down to how they respect nature and consider other beings as part of who we are. There was a lot of homework involved with it, they took us foraging, showed us what we can and can’t eat, and how they only take what they need and give thanks to nature. For the modern day and howe we live in the city, it was pretty mind-blowing. It influenced our design decisions, we added foraging in Yotei because it’s an important part of the culture.”.
Ghost of Yotei release on PS5 on October 2nd. For more on Ghost of Yotei, you can read our review right here and find the cheapest copy in our bargain guide.