Expectations have been sky high for Ghost of Yotei, one of the top games seeing a release this year, as it is a sequel to 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima.
However, not only does Ghost of Yotei take place hundreds of years after the Mongolian invasion of Japan depicted in Ghost of Tsushima, but features a new protagonist too. A female warrior named Atsu is looking to avenge her family in 17th century Hokkaido, Japan. So this will be a different kind of story than that of Tsushima in which protagonist Jin Sakai had to fight the Mongols in order to thwart their invasion of Japan.
Ghost of Yotei, then, is not a direct sequel to Tsushima, but will be just as violent if the game’s ESRB rating is anything to go by. Actually, protagonist Atsu will fight just as fiercely as Jin Sakai did in the previous game, as the game features both dismemberment and decapitation, with plenty of blood to go with it… Impaling enemies with her sword or stabbing them in the neck will be ways in which Atsu performs assassinations in the game, and to heighten the impact this is shown in slow motion, meaning Ghost of Yotei will be just as violent and adult in this sense as the previous game in the series was.
Since in this game protagonist Atsu is on a revenge mission against the men who killed her family and left her for dead, it makes sense that plenty more violence is seen in the game’s cutscenes too. Players will see characters being “burned at the stake” according to the ESRB, someone will be stabbed repeatedly with a knife at some point in the game, while a man will commit suicide by “slitting their own throat”.
So this is a game aimed at adult audiences as the ESRB “M” rating (the M standing for Mature) makes clear, but does Ghost of Yotei feature sex or nudity aside from intense violence?
There will be nudity actually, as at some point in the game Atsu will be relaxing in a hot spring, with players getting to see her exposed buttocks in the game… This is something that Ghost of Yotei’s creative director Nate Fox told MinnMaxx (via GameSpot) in an interview earlier this month, stating that like Ghost of Tsushima’s protagonist Jin, “Atsu will also be getting an onsen, and you will see her butt”.
But apparently female warrior Atsu will be too busy with her revenge mission to get intimate with anyone, as Ghost of Yotei does not feature any sex scenes. Atsu can participate in some kind of drinking game at some point in Ghost of Yotei, though, with the game featuring “screen-blurring effects” when she consumes sake according to the ESRB (maybe she had a little too much?).
What matters is if this will be as compelling as Jin Sakai’s journey in Ghost of Tsushima? Early reviews are in, with the game’s score standing at 87 at the time of writing, so it appears that Sucker Punch (the studio behind Ghost of Yotei) has achieved the goal of at least equaling their earlier game with Ghost of Yotei.
Also, there may be DLC coming for the game, as this is something that the game’s creative director did not rule out in an interview earlier this month. So players might be getting an expansion once they are done with the game, one which will likely be as bloody and violent as the main game, if it actually does materialize…
What’s clear, though, is that this is as mature and adult a game as Ghost of Tsushima was, meaning players will be in for a treat when Ghost of Yotei hits the shelves early next month.
Note: Ghost of Yotei will be released on October 2, 2025. Available on PS5.