Ghost of Yotei Is The Revenge Story Assassin’s Creed Shadows Should Have Been

There was something about Ghost of Tsushima’s open world adventure from Sucker Punch that ticked all of my boxes. Its combat was brutal, filled with depth, and allowed me to live out my samurai fantasies, while it struck a fine balance in its rollout of compelling narrative quests and explorative busywork that made it the very best of both worlds. It didn’t revolutionise the medium, but it was a lot of fun to play.

When Ghost of Tsushima was first released back in 2020, it was difficult not to talk about how it both took inspiration from Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series while also beating it to the punch when it came to taking place in a historical Japanese setting. Yes, it took a few major liberties with it – katanas weren’t even invented during the year Tsushima took place – but that was easy to forgive when the experience was otherwise so faithful and gorgeous.

When Assassin’s Creed Shadows was announced, it felt like the game Ubisoft was pitching to the world already existed.

Ghost Of Yotei Is Already More Exciting Than Assassin’s Creed Shadows

It’s obviously worth noting that Ghost of Yotei has significantly less baggage than Assassin’s Creed Shadows ever did. It is the first sequel to a beloved open-world game and not one last attempt at trying to bring a faded property back to life after years of player fatigue and lapsed creativity. Not to mention the target Ubisoft had painted on its back from toxic subsets of the gaming landscape who believed it was trying to be some sort of political landmark. It became a punching bag for so many reasons it didn’t deserve.

Granted, Ghost of Yotei has already come under fire for having a female protagonist, and for casting queer and genderfluid actor Erika Ishii as Atsu, but for the most part, it seems that people are just relieved that Sony is working on a single-player experience rather than another failed live-service title. While predictable, it is still a breath of fresh air in the current gaming landscape.

Atsu riding a horse across a field of blue flowers in Ghost of Yotei.

The game will be arriving exclusively for the PS5 on October 2, which is way sooner than any of us could have expected. Maybe I’m just used to things taking a decade to make nowadays.

What struck me most about the release date trailer for Ghost of Yotei earlier this week was how much I’m looking forward to this game that, previously, was hardly on my radar. Like its predecessor, there is very little in this game that breaks new ground. The narrative takes place several hundred years after Tsushima and follows Atsu as she embarks on a journey of revenge against a small group of individuals, all of which are introduced in this trailer. Our job is to find them, kill them, and have a lot of fun doing it. It’s as simple as stories come, yet its execution here is immaculate.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows follows a very similar narrative path as Naoe vows revenge on a huge group of people after her father is murdered, but there are far too many people with so little depth that it’s hard to care about killing them all. When you actually embark on the distinct quest lines in which these assassinations take place, they’re generic and rote. After 20 hours with Naoe, I’m hard-pressed to care about her personal journey, doubly so when it’s split with a far more compelling character like Yasuke. But with Atsu, three minutes is all it took for me to jump on board.

Ghost of Yotei Could Prove That Bigger Isn’t Always Better

Assassin's Creed Shadows - Instant Assassinations.

Her adventure seems more stylish, more personal, and more nuanced and considered in the people she vows revenge upon. There are fewer of them for a start, and despite occupying a few predictable archetypes like ‘The Spider’, ‘The Kitsune’, and ‘The Dragon’, it does such a good job of proving to us why these people shouldn’t be missed, and that Atsu has to go to the ends of the earth to take them down. Simple revenge stories can work with enough attention paid to certain aspects, while Assassin’s Creed Shadows made the journey too vast and shallow to offer any semblance of consequence. It was boring.

Having a single protagonist that an entire game can revolve around with quirks, beliefs, flaws and motivations I can understand and empathize with will make this journey of bitter revenge so much more satisfying when it finally comes to pass. The fact I will look cool, feel good, and discover a beautiful open world while doing so is the cherry on top. I want to care about the people I’m asked to kill as much as the people killing them, whether it’s through a story that emphasizes how much I should hate them or perhaps even pulls me to their side a little bit with a yarn that is willing to go to deep, dark, and fascinating places.