Ghost Of Yotei Looks Fine, But Sucker Punch Could Do (And Has Done) So Much More

After watching last week’s State of Play, dedicated entirely to the upcoming Ghost of Yotei, I didn’t feel like I came away with anything worthwhile. I could have guessed exactly what the game would be like based on Ghost of Tsushima, and that makes sense for a sequel, but it’s also the reason that it just doesn’t feel like anything new.

I don’t have a complaint against the game itself; I liked Ghost of Tsushima, so I’m likely to enjoy Ghost of Yotei for what it is. It looks gorgeous and polished, but familiar. It might do well critically, it might do well commercially, but I’m not convinced it’s going to be anything special in the long run.

This is especially apparent when we look back at what Sucker Punch has created in the past with both Sly Cooper and Infamous, and how both have been seemingly shelved in favour of the Ghost series. Surely there’s room for at least two of those things to exist?

If we ignore all of the people who decided they didn’t want Ghost of Yotei from the get-go because the protagonist is a woman they were just so invested in Jin’s story, then there’s quite a bit of buzz around the upcoming sequel. And, well, it looks terrific within the context of following up on Ghost of Tsushima.

But like Ghost of Tsushima, it also looks pretty standard, and something we’ve seen done before again and again in open-world games. Explore the very pretty world with lots of stylistic wind and trees, make use of parrying and counterstrikes and some new kinds of weapons, and enjoy a cinematic story that will no doubt be well told. It’s easy to paraphrase any game, and I’ll still be playing Ghost of Yotei at launch and having fun with it all the same, but I do hope that Sucker Punch hasn’t completely forgotten its other IPs before we see yet another Ghost game in five years.

I’m not saying that Sucker Punch should stop making more Ghost games. The first did well, and the sequel will undoubtedly follow, but it would be refreshing to see the return of Sly or Infamous at the same time, when it’s been 11 years since the last Infamous game, and 20 years since the last Sly Cooper title developed by Sucker Punch, yet only a fraction of that to follow up on this newer series.

Sequels To Revolutionary Games Are Struggling… Kind Of

This tends to be a pattern with blockbuster sequels in recent years; particularly, sequels to very well-received games. God of War: Ragnarok, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are all fantastic sequels, and while each is still just as good and critically successful, they’re relatively unremarkable in the shadow of what came before. I adore God of War, Spider-Man/Miles Morales, and Breath of the Wild, but each of those sequels has been vastly familiar and almost forgettable. Sure, it can’t be denied that Tears of the Kingdom took larger steps than the others with Ultrahand and allowing some more creativity, but even as a big fan of the game, I can recognise it still fell short of what made Breath of the Wild so special.

While I was unbothered by the announcement of a sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, I now only find myself disappointed that it’s exactly what I was expecting. I’ll play it and enjoy it, but there’ll be no lasting impact on myself or the industry, and we’ll all move on before long.

There’s Room For Some Classics To Return

So am I just complaining into a void, or do I have a point? Well, yes and yes; my point actually is that Sucker Punch made the PlayStation classic title Sly Cooper, which has been dormant for many years now, but in the wake of Astro Bot’s success, a return to these old-school styles of video games might be more successful than initially thought. Sure, a talking raccoon thief is a little different from a gritty revenge story in feudal Japan, but the studio already gave us that exact thing five years ago.

Not feeling Sly Cooper? Okay, what about Infamous? The series began on the PS3, while Infamous: Second Son, featuring Troy Baker, was a big, exciting game in the early days of the PS4. I have no doubt that Sucker Punch could give us a strong story featuring a new character possessing some otherworldly powers and the responsibility that comes with that, making use of the PS5’s modern hardware to display visual flair like nothing else we’ve seen, while delivering more freedom in the balance between good and evil, and the gray in between.

I’m not trying to be the old man yelling at a Sucker Punch-shaped cloud; I just hope that, after Ghost of Yotei, the studio can look towards something new – or something old – as long as it isn’t just sticking to a ‘one-trick pony’ pattern. And that’s not just Sucker Punch, it goes for Insomniac and Santa Monica and every other studio out there.