Ghost of Yotei has already been critically acclaimed and commercially successful, surpassing even Ghost of Tsushima. This is primarily down to the improved open world in the sequel. Where Tsushima was filled with basic open-world points of interest that acted as boxes to check, Yotei made each one feel interesting and gave out a useful reward for each one.
Traversing the open-world, though, mostly remained the same. You can fast-travel between settlements and points of interest, take your horse to unexplored areas, and use the grapple hook to reach higher spots. Yotei did have more climbing than Tsushima, and it seems the devs toyed with a ‘climb any surface’ feature like in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Ghost Of The Wild
At a GDC 2026 panel, directors Nate Fox and Jason Connell explained how Ghost of Yotei’s development expanded from the conceptualization phase into full blown production (thanks GamesRadar). This involved creating gameplay pillars and adding or removing them if they didn’t fit the overall vision of the game.
Connell explained that “if something is not going well, we can be like ‘does that make you feel like a wandering ronin?’ And if the answer is no, and it’s a sucky feature, then why are you working on it? Just move on.” One of the features that was cut via this process was making every surface climbable, like in Breath of the Wild.
Fox chimed in, saying he played Breath of the Wild and thought every game should include its climbing feature. The devs got working on it, creating a version that even worked in Ghost of Tsushima. However, they later realised that the system may not work for the open-world of the game, as it had too many walls.
“If we gave you a tool that said you can climb anywhere, and you started using it and you found bupkiss, it pretty much trains you to stop climbing, because exploration wasn’t worth it,” added Fox. So, the team decided to go back to the original climbing mechanic. You know, the one where climbable ledges are highlighted by bird poo.
- Released
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October 2, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Language, Partial Nudity, Use of Alcohol
- Publisher(s)
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Sony Interactive Entertainment
