A swarm of dandelion-colored butterflies circle overhead as my opponent draws his katana. He spits some last words of vitriol my way as a rapid beat centered around a sharply plucked shamisen starts up. Blades clash, blood spurts and the duel ends with a samurai at my feet in a crimson-soaked kimono.
In Ghost of Yotei, the newest game from American studio Sucker Punch Productions set in early 17th-century Ezo (modern-day Hokkaido), this uber-saturated take on samurai aesthetics is a large part of what makes it successful. Like its predecessor, 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima, players step into the role of a warrior hellbent on revenge. In the first game, that meant battling through hordes of Mongol soldiers in an effort to stem the initial waves of the 13th-century invasions of Japan.
In Ghost of Yotei, however, the enemies are domestic. Set in 1603 in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Sekigahara and the consolidation of the Tokugawa clan’s control over a unified Japan, Ezo nominally serves as a kind of unconquered frontier land where defeated and disaffected samurai and outlaws alike can escape from the new shogun’s control.
However, in choosing to base the newest installment of the increasingly popular series on a Wild West-esque reimagining of Japan’s northernmost island, Ghost of Yotei also runs up against its greatest weakness: what to do with the people who called Ezo home before all these samurai turned up.
An Ezo tale
Before the question of Hokkaido’s indigenous inhabitants comes up in the course of a playthrough of Ghost of Yotei, things get off to an exhilarating start.
Players take control of Atsu, an orphan who watched as her family was cut down at the hands of the Yotei Six, a band of outlaws and samurai that seeks to control Ezo as a domain free from the shogunate’s control. Later, Atsu explains that she made her way south to Osaka before becoming a mercenary who fought for the losing side at Sekigahara. After that, she returns to Ezo and begins hunting down the Yotei Six — eventually earning the epithet of onryō (vengeful ghost).
From here, all the samurai action-adventure features that made Ghost of Tsushima a success return. After seeking out weapons masters located across several regions of Ezo, Atsu’s arsenal expands from a single katana to dual blades, then an ōdachi (great sword), a yari (spear) and a kusarigama (sickle and chain). Projectile weapons include a hankyū (short bow) and yumi (traditional long bow), and in the late game, a matchlock Tanegashima musket and tanjutsu pistol make an appearance.
The katana is the star of the show, and it shines brightest during Ghost of Yotei’s standoffs. When encountering enemy patrols or encampments, players have the option of stealthily infiltrating their ranks and assassinating foes one by one. But for head-on conflicts, Atsu can also dare enemies to approach, sheathe her sword and wait. With the right timing and upgrades, the player can cut down several enemies with a single slash each — a gameplay mechanic directly influenced by the climax of the 1962 classic samurai film “Sanjuro.”
In between all the bloodshed, more contemplative aspects of Ghost of Yotei round out the world. Stopping for a soothing dip in a hidden onsen (hot spring) yields health upgrades. Stands of bamboo serve as swordsmanship training: Hit the right buttons in the right order within the time limit and increase your ability to heal, revive and execute special moves. And before many of the game’s picturesque scenes — dragonflies hovering before a rushing waterfall or a frog leaping clear of a river’s current, to name a few — Atsu takes a moment to sketch out a Chinese-style sumi inkwash painting (in an endearing twist, accomplished by the player by miming brush strokes on the PlayStation 5 controller’s touch pad).
Throughout the player’s travels across Ezo, there will also be ample opportunities to explore areas off the beaten path that wind up a cliff wall or through a thickly forested glade. More often than not, the ultimate goal is a Shinto shrine, where a perfunctory bow by Atsu will reward the player with more upgrades for solving basic traversal puzzles.
But after making my way through deepest, darkest Ezo — an island that wasn’t officially annexed by Japan until 266 years after Ghost of Yotei is set and which multiple characters remark throughout the game as being beyond mainland Japan’s influence, I began to wonder: Isn’t it peculiar that there are so many markers of Japan and so few of the indigenous inhabitants that called the island home?
The Ainu issue
Soon after entering Ghost of Yotei’s overworld at the start of the game, players will likely encounter merchants from Hokkaido’s indigenous Ainu ethnic group. Later on, Atsu can visit a small Ainu village — the map’s sole such settlement — where a handful of self-contained quests yield minor insights into the culture, and throughout the world, assorted Ainu curios serve as the game’s nigh-impossible-to-finish collectibles quest.
Upon obtaining one of these stray Ainu items, Atsu may languidly remark that “the Ainu are losing a lot in this conflict.” Whether she means the ongoing struggles between the Yotei Six, its samurai rivals and her onryō self or a broader colonization initiative is unclear.
In reality, while ethnically Japanese samurai had an established presence in southern Hokkaido from the mid-15th century, a state-sanctioned effort to colonize the island with settlers from the mainland wouldn’t occur until the late 1800s. It would take the Japanese government until 2019 to recognize Ainu as indigenous people of the land. Today, unofficial estimates suggest that only 200,000 people of Ainu descent remain.
Neither Ghost of Yotei nor Ghost of Tsushima before it claim to be unassailable arbiters of historical fact. In the latter game set during the 13th-century Mongol incursions into Japan, samurai armor is modeled after the Sengoku Period (1482-1573), and hwacha — rudimentary rocket launchers developed in Korea during Japan’s late-16th-century invasion of the peninsula — serve as part of the fortifications for some enemy camps.
During development for Ghost of Yotei, several Sucker Punch members visited Hokkaido for a “journey in learning about Ainu culture,” but it seems that those lessons weren’t enough to trump choices about the game’s overall aesthetics. The philosophy behind Sucker Punch’s design for any era of Japan in which warriors crossed katana is simple: “When we are deviating from this historical truth, we are doing it to stop you from snagging on stuff,” Chris Zimmerman, Sucker Punch cofounder and then-programmer with the company, told gaming media outlet GameSpot in 2018. “If you have an idea about what samurai look like or how they act or how they think, we're going to give that to you.”
But there’s the difference between using the same aesthetic choices in two games in vastly different locations and eras. An anachronistic set of armor in 13th-century Tsushima may be a matter of taste; a sprawling Shinto shrine complex atop a mountain in the northernmost reaches of Hokkaido in 1603 substitutes the presence of one culture over another as if it were a matter of set dressing.
During my playthrough, on one trip to a mountaintop onsen, Atsu has the chance to relax and reflect on the Ainu people. She wonders what her life would have been like if she had been taken in and raised by an Ainu family instead of fleeing to mainland Japan. What kind of story would such a character straddling cultures be able to tell?
In Ghost of Tsushima, the premise of a lone Japanese protagonist resisting a Mongol invasion helped flesh out a historical era rarely seen in video games. In Ghost of Yotei, I can only wonder how engaging it would’ve been to play as a character with more direct ties to the Ainu doing the same against an encroaching Japan.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.