I had a brief layover at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport a few years ago. I was only there for an hour or two, so I didn’t have time to seek out anything that Seattle and/or Tacoma had to offer. But as my plane left the tarmac and soared into the air, I looked out the window and felt my jaw drop at the sight of Mt. Rainier.
Ghost Of Yotei Seems To Capture The Awe-Inspiring Power Of Mountains
The 14,400 foot tall stratovolcano stood out so prominently against the landscape that it almost reminded me of the towns you see on the world map inFinal Fantasy 7: islands in the green, jutting proudly from the flat land around them. From my little window, Mt. Rainier seemed like the only thing in the world.
Given thatGhost of Yōteigives the Japanese mountain a prominent place in its title, it shouldn’t be surprising that theGhost of Tsushimasequel’s debut trailer seemed to regard the mountain with the same awe I felt in that airplane. That announcement trailer, which debuted at this week’sState of Play, didn’t tell us much aboutSucker Punch’s samurai follow-up. It seems to be a story about revenge, with heroine Atsu setting out to right a wrong, though I can’t tell you what. I can tell you that the clip has some incredible shots of Mount Yōtei, and that I will be spending half my time with the game snapping Photo Mode shots of its snow capped peak.
Light No Fire, the next game from No Man’s Sky developer Hello Games, is another game that showed off an impressively gargantuan mountain in its reveal trailer.
The Trailer’s Best Shots Focus On Mount Yotei
The trailer starts on the mountain, establishing the setting in black-and-white before switching out of “Kurosawa Mode” and into vibrant color. But it doesn’t really pop in those initial establishing shots. It’s one interesting feature of a landscape, not something truly dominant. But, once the Sucker Punch logo hits, alongside a galloping string tune, we get a breathtaking visual. Atsu, sitting on her horse, looks out over a sea of fog to Mount Yōtei, which dwarfs and enfolds everything else in the shot. Atsu, the mist, the flock of birds flying past — they are all in Mount Yōtei’s domain.
In the next shot, we see Atsu riding her horse among a flock of wild stallions, with the mountain looming in the background. Less prominent, but still there, waiting. Then, there are a bunch of shots without the mountain, which sell that this is indeed a big game that won’t all take place in the same area. But, at the end, the trailer gets back to the mountain as Atsu watches a wolf run into the distance, with Yotei looming impossibly large over the golden fields below. It’s gorgeous stuff.
See that mountain? You can climb it!is a long-standing open-world pitch, one that developers like Todd Howard used so often in the late 2000s/early 2010s that it became a meme. It’s easy to see the phrase’s utility. It promises the freedom to go anywhere your eyes can see, and that’s intrinsic to the genre’s appeal. But, I like that Ghost of Yōtei is capturing the actual vibe of mountains in the real-world: incredibly imposing, awe-inspiring, mysterious.
