Ghost of Yotei Japan

If you've been keeping up with Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yotei developer Sucker Punch over the years, you'll know that the studio takes its work very seriously.

Although Ghost of Tsushima wasn't utterly grounded in historical accuracy — taking heavy inspiration from samurai cinema — Sucker Punch still made sure to respect the culture that it was trying to portray.

The result was an open world title that went down incredibly well with many a Japanese player. Jin's revenge-driven adventure was both a critical and commercial success in the country that it's set within.

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Naturally, the developer wants to repeat this feat with this year's Ghost of Yotei. In a new and intriguing post on the PlayStation Blog, director Nate Fox goes into some detail regarding the team's approach to recreating Japan's cultural identity, as well as its often varied landscapes.

"The best part of working on Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yotei has been getting the opportunity to go on reference gathering trips to Japan," Fox admits right off the bat.

"As an American, I had primarily seen the country through the lens of beloved classic samurai movies. But actually going there, feeling the wind on your face, smelling pine forests, and meeting locals is deeply inspiring."

Indeed, Sucker Punch has spoken of these all-important reference trips before, and how crucial they ended up being to the first game's success.

"Everyone from Sucker Punch that went on those reference gathering trips came back to the studio with a driving passion to bring a sense of authenticity to our fictional depiction of these real life places," Fox continues.

"We felt that by listening to our cultural advisors and by doing research we could deliver a respectful representation of what made Tsushima so special. To deliver a feeling of authenticity and believability to our fictional story. For Ghost of Yotei, we’re doing the same thing."

Of course, Ghost of Yotei takes place several hundred years after its predecessor, and as the name suggests, it's set around Mt. Yotei in Hokkaido (Japan's northernmost prefecture), as opposed to the island of Tsushima.

Fox comments: "It was the perfect place to tell Atsu’s tale; a warrior so driven by revenge that locals start to believe she’s an onryo walking the land. If you’re going to tell a ghost story, do it in a dramatic location."

"The landscape spoke to us and we’ve done our best to capture the spirit of it in our fictional version of the island. But that wasn’t all we learned while on this trip. As a bunch of Americans we knew how ignorant we were about Japanese culture. To help start to solve that problem we met with a wealth of knowledgeable individuals and visited important cultural sites," the article concludes, teasing more insight at a later date.

Given how much we enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima, we can't wait to see what the studio's been cooking with Ghost of Yotei — especially after reading through stuff like this. If nothing else, it's abundantly clear that Sucker Punch's passion bleeds into all aspects of its development process.

Do you appreciate Sucker Punch's approach? Are you looking forward to Ghost of Yotei? Start climbing that mountain in the comments section below.

[source blog.playstation.com]