Summary
- Ghost of Yotei introduces Atsu in 1603 on a revenge path to Ezo, 300 years post-Ghost of Tsushima.
- Ezo's potential massive open world size may be challenging if Sucker Punch hopes to avoid Ghost of Tsushima's criticisms.
- Sucker Punch has committed to avoid Ghost of Tsushima's repetitiveness in Ghost of Yotei's map design.
Fans might have been expecting a direct sequel to Ghost of Tsushima that would continue the story of Jin Sakai, but they are instead getting an all-new adventure. Ghost of Yotei sees Atsu, its protagonist, on a revenge path to Ezo in 1603, 300 years after the events of Ghost of Tsushima. Not much is currently known about the full extent of Ghost of Yotei, but it's possible to speculate on the size of its map with what little information has already been offered.
Ghost of Yotei takes players to the land of Ezo, known today as the island of Hokkaido, so its open world has the potential to be overwhelmingly massive. However, after some criticisms garnered by Ghost of Tsushima, the sequel may want to keep things reined in — unless, of course, it can feature an even larger open world than its predecessor but still make it manageable.
How Ghost of Yotei Could Incorporate Jin's Legacy
Ghost of Tsushima's Jin Sakai may not be Ghost of Yotei's protagonist, but there is still a way the sequel could incorporate his legacy into the game.
Ghost of Yotei Has a Tough Choice to Make Regarding Its World Size
Ghost of Yotei Could Potentially Allow Players to Explore Ezo in Its Entirety
With Ghost of Yotei taking players to Ezo, that could result in them being introduced to an open world that is over 100 times larger than Tsushima Island, the setting for Ghost of Tsushima. Specifically, whereas Tsushima Island is around 269 square miles, Ezo (Hokkaido) is roughly 32,222 square miles. That being said, Ghost of Tsushima's actual map size is significantly scaled down, resulting in it being around 11 square miles.
If Ghost of Yotei's Ezo maintains its proportions in comparison to Ghost of Tsushima's Tsushima Island, that will put it in the vicinity of 1,300 square miles — around 14 times larger than the likes of Assassin's Creed Odyssey's Greece, which covers nearly 91 square miles, both land and sea. Needless to say, Ezo's enormous size provides Sucker Punch with an endless sea of possibilities by giving them more than enough space to work with, but that may not be the best route for it to take.
Ghost of Yotei May Want to Keep Its Map Size Reined in After Ghost of Tsushima Criticisms
While "bigger is better" might have once been a staple philosophy of open-world design, it has been held in contempt for quite some time now due to its effortless ability to manifest empty game worlds bloated with repetitive activities. Ghost of Tsushima wasn't able to avoid these criticisms entirely, although many elements of its open world offer a refreshing take on the tired formula. Rather than being bloated with far too many open-world activities, however, Ghost of Tsushima is simply repetitive, essentially featuring the same activities and collectibles in each of its story acts and the three major regions of its iteration of Tsushima Island.
By the time players reach Ghost of Tsushima's third act (or even its second), they might find themselves preferring to avoid exploring the open world as much as possible and simply prioritize the game's main story instead. While there's technically nothing wrong with this, the approach simultaneously wastes the valuable time and resources that Ghost of Tsushima poured into its open world. As such, Ghost of Yotei might be remiss to feature an even larger map, especially if most of it is nothing more than flat land filled with vegetation, as its announcement trailer seems to depict.
With Ghost of Yotei taking players to Ezo, that could result in them being introduced to an open world that is over 100 times larger than Tsushima Island, the setting for Ghost of Tsushima.
Instead of allowing players to explore Ezo in its entirety, Ghost of Yotei could contain them in the lands surrounding Mount Yotei, which would make sense given the game's title. However, if Ghost of Yotei chooses to go the route of opening up all of Ezo to players, it may do good for it to break the map up into several regions that open up as the story progresses. Furthermore, each region would arguably need to feature new activities and collectibles that weren't obtainable previously to prevent monotony from once again setting in.
Sucker Punch has seemingly accounted for the shortcomings of Ghost of Tsushima's open world, as it has confirmed that Ghost of Yotei's map will not be as repetitive as its predecessor's. Unfortunately, it seems like that might be an insurmountably tall order when considering the size of Ezo in comparison to Tsushima Island. Nevertheless, these are all presumptions, as Ghost of Yotei's open world has yet to fully reveal itself.
Ghost of Yotei
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 87 /100 Critics Rec: 94%
- Released
- October 2, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Language, Partial Nudity, Use of Alcohol
- Developer(s)
- Sucker Punch
- Publisher(s)
- Sony Interactive Entertainment
WHERE TO PLAY
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5
- Genre(s)
- Action, Adventure, Open-World
