Ghost of Yotei Director has Simple Message for Those Who Think It’s ‘Woke’

Ghost of Yotei will be released on October 2, 2025, exclusively for the PlayStation 5. It is a sequel to 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima, but the story is set over 300 years in the future, meaning Daisuke Tsuji’s Jin Sakai is long gone and has paved the way for a new protagonist to shine.

Changing who the playable character is became a challenge for most game developers. However, the director behind this upcoming project couldn’t care less about the hateful comments thrown by the gaming community.

The ‘Woke’ Comments Don’t Faze the Director of Ghost of Yotei

After the Ghost of Yotei announcement trailer was released, fans were divided about playing a female character and wrestling with the fact that Jin Saka is long gone. The story is set years in the future and features a new heroine named Atsu, as players fill in her shoes in tracking down her family’s killers in this new adventure. Both Jin and Atsu have a few striking similarities, such as being driven with enormous guilt for being the sole survivors of a deadly attack and being experts in the way of the katana.

In a recent interview with Variety, creative directors Nate Fox and Jason Connell spoke about the decision to feature a strong female character at the center of this new project, and what they feel about fans accusing Sucker Punch Productions of going ‘woke.’

We knew we had all these fans who love “Tsushima.” We want to carry all of those fans forward into an exciting new adventure. We’re creatives. We like to make new things. We like to make exciting, new pieces of art and move people in new ways. We want to make a sequel that’s fresh but familiar.

The introduction of Atsu was part of an effort to spice up the experience and give players something they didn’t have in the original game.

Nate and I are pretty enamored with making origin stories, and certainly one that we could find a way to make them feel like a bit of an underdog in this landscape. This is a pretty dangerous landscape, which positions her to be an excellent person for that. This is somebody that people would not expect to be so powerful, yet here she is on this romp of a vengeance quest, which is probably pretty unexpected for some people.

Fox and Connell are more interested in creating new stories and introducing new characters than continuing a story. While the developers could have made a direct sequel to Ghost of Tsushima featuring Jin, the idea didn’t appeal to the directors, who wanted to explore new ideas. Atsu’s gender doesn’t make her less appealing than Jin, and both directors want to try something different than giving the same with a few improvements.

Over time, she’ll get this name of The Onryō, because this Japanese folk legend is an unkillable, vengeance-seeking ghost. And that’s just an awesome fit. Onryō are typically stories of vengeance from females. So that seems like a really nice package for this.

Atsu will become a legend, similar to how Jin became the Ghost during the Mongol invasion. Both characters can stand apart and shine without being compared to each other.

Despite what others may think about the creative decision to introduce Atsu as the playable protagonist, the story Connell and Fox are going for fits well with this character. The Onryō is an equivalent to Jin’s persona as the Ghost, and Atsu will mow down anyone in her path. It is an opportunity to showcase strong and capable female lead characters at a time when most of the playable protagonists are men.

Ghost of Yotei is set to release on October 2nd, 2025, on PS5.

For more Thumb Wars coverage, check out the moment fans are eager to see in The Last of Us Season 2, and how the shadow drop of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered didn’t sway fans from trying Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

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