For someone with a deep love of Japanese games, especially those focused on its aesthetics, culture and history, I was not especially fond ofGhost of Tsushima. Perhaps it was because of its dated and generic open world design, or the way it prides itself on how cinematic its samurai actionlooksrather than how it feels toplaycompared toSekiroor evenRise of the Ronin. But it’s also partly down to a protective instinct over seeing Japanese culture, having spent decades being considered niche in the West, being appropriated by a non-Japanese triple-A studio. Yet withGhost of Yotei, I’m more optimistic.
Of course, the game has only been announced recently with scant details, so I’m not saying it’s going to necessarily offer an improved gameplay experience (although when it comes to new IPs, sequels can often fix the problems of their predecessors,as was the case with Assassin’s Creed 2, as well asUncharted 2andMass Effect 2).
While a lot of the online discourse has been over Ghost of Yotei having a new female protagonist in Atsu,I don’t really think gender alone makes a game better or worse. Rather, it’s the jump to a few hundred years later and a new setting that most intrigues me. If it doesn’tfixthe issues I had with the first game, it does feel like it provides a unique storytelling opportunity that an outsider likeSucker Punchis best placed to take advantage of.
I can see why Tsushima had its fans, at least for the surface-level aesthetic. It certainly looked beautiful, especially when you consider it was a PS4 game. It also really doubles down on what we imagine when we think of samurai and Japanese culture. However, the much-touted Kurosawa Mode failed to convince me (I am begging people to watch the director’s Shakespearean masterpiece Ran, which was filmed in vibrant colour), while the inclusion of other cultural touchstones, like fox shrines, onsens, haikus, katana, and hwacha, many of which had not even been invented at the time, felt like fetishism disguised as reverence.
But there’s an opportunity for Yotei not to be ‘the Japan game’ again, but rather more distinct with something interesting to say. Something which isn’t necessarily going to be a glowing portrayal of the Land of the Rising Sun. Indeed, the setting isn’t even technically Japan but Ezo, a region north of the archipelago nation that is known today as Hokkaido, but which in 1603, the year the game is set, was still outside of Japanese rule. The name Ezo actually means ‘the land of the barbarians’ in Japanese.
In other words, this was a land whose indigenous people, the Ainu, were othered by the Japanese who would make inroads to colonize the territory and subjugate them. From the early 1800s, the Ainu were subjected to forced assimilation, including the policy of separating Ainu women from their husbands to enter forced marriages with Japanese men. By the time of the Meiji Restoration (the birth of both a modern and imperialist Japan), Ezo was annexed under Japanese administration and renamed Hokkaido, while the Ainu people had their land taken away, and they were forbidden from speaking their native language and practising their customs and religious practises.
So why does this matter? I don’t think it’s a coincidence thatYotei is set in 1603 at the dawn of the Edo shogunate period. While this government wouldn’t begin its colonisation efforts until later in that century, it means the game has the potential to depict Ezo and its indigenous inhabitants as they were, including their customs such as tattooing, fishing, and hunting, as well as a tradition of catching and raising bear cubs (that said, the only animal visible in the announcement trailer is a wolf). Rather than regurgitating a checklist of Japanese cultural tropes, this open world could instead shine a light on a near-extinct culture, whose people were only formally recognized as an indigenous people by the National Diet of Japan in 2019.
Why An Outside Perspective Benefits Ghost Of Yotei
There are already signs of how this sequel subverts expectations of a Japanese samurai adventure. The trailer’s score alludes more to themes from a Western, but is played with a Japanese shamisen, the same instrument that Atsu can be seen carrying on her back. It hints that the US developer won’t try to slavishly emulate a samurai movie, but also acknowledges the dialogue that samurai movies and Westerns have always had. Even the ability to master firearms means we can expect different combat styles that go against the samurai spirit (indeed, Atsu has not been explicitly referred to in any promotional materials as a samurai).
So far, the developers have only alluded that the story is one of “underdog vengeance” while the trailer alludes to Atsu being hunted by “every ronin”. But what if, in running away from her hunters, she finds refuge among the Ainu people, and in turn becomes their protector? Whereas Tsushima was about Japan fending off Mongol invaders, this time it could be the Japanese who are the invaders while you’ve gone native.
It would certainly be a brave direction for the series, maintaining its core pillar of having you play as a wandering warrior in a beautiful interpretation of Feudal Japan, while also critiquing Japan’s colonial past and challenging the notion of the Japanese national identity as one of ethnic homogeneity. It’s in fact the kind of critique a non-Japanese studio like Sucker Punch is best positioned to make, one that perhaps Japanese companies with conservative hierarchies dare not rock the boat on.
This is not something unique to Japan - the British education system likes to gloss over the brutal legacy of the British Empire. But it often takes an outsider to expose the darkness, such as how blockbuster movies with the staunchest criticisms of American imperialism tend to come from non-American filmmakers.
Personally, I love a lot about Japan but I’m not blind to its problems - one of my favourite shows is currently Pachinko, which follows a Korean family across generations as they immigrate to Japan and the oppression and discrimination they’re subjected to in both the country’s imperial and post-war eras. That’s a healthy attitude to have, because holding any country or culture as being special or perfect can be naive, condescending, even dangerous. Whether or not Sucker Punch takes this direction with Yotei and succeeds is hard to say, but it will at least make it more interesting than Tsushima.
