Ghost of Yōtei shows why art direction matters in video games

When critics talk about major video game releases, the conversation often circles around mechanics, combat systems, or narrative beats. What tends to be overlooked is the force that shapes how we feel about all of these elements before a line of dialogue is spoken or a blade is drawn: art direction. In Ghost of Yōtei, the long-awaited sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, both developed by American studio Sucker Punch, art direction is not ornamental but structural. It defines the mood, guides the player’s perception, and ultimately anchors the game’s identity.

Ghost of Tsushima was celebrated precisely for this reason. At The Game Awards 2020 it won the prize for Best Art Direction, with the jury praising how the game “delivered a beautiful open world inspired by Japanese art and cinema, blending authenticity with a striking visual identity.”

Joanna Wang, who worked on Tsushima before becoming Art Director on Yōtei, recalls the philosophy clearly: “We wanted every environment to speak to the player before the characters did. The wind, the trees, the light—those weren’t decorative. They were the interface.” She notes how the team pushed to replace traditional HUD elements – video games’ on-screen interface – with natural cues: gusts of wind pointing the way, foxes leading to shrines, birds drawing attention to secrets. “That was our way of making the world the guide. We wanted you to feel it, not read it.”

Jason Connell, Tsushima’s and Yōtei’s co-director, once said they aimed for Tsushima to be “absolutely stunning and mesmerizing,” and the result was indeed a world that felt like inhabiting a moving scroll painting. For Wang, that ambition set the bar: “Tsushima taught us that if the environment feels authentic and alive, the player will forgive almost anything else. That was the lesson we carried into Yōtei.”

Wang has been with Sucker Punch for more than two decades, beginning as a texture artist on Sly Cooper and working through the inFAMOUS series before becoming Production Art Director. She describes her career path with a kind of modest persistence: “I learned to see the world surface by surface. A rock isn’t just a rock—it’s history, it’s light, it’s weight. That’s how you start to build a world.”

Now, leading Yōtei’s art direction, she sees her role less as a decorator and more as a storyteller. “Art direction is the skin of the world,” she says. “It’s how the world breathes. Every frame should tell you something—even if the player doesn’t consciously notice.”

That philosophy carries directly into Yōtei. “We wanted it to feel brighter, more expansive, yet still deeply Japanese,” Wang explains. If Tsushima was autumnal and melancholic, Yōtei seeks contrast and volatility: snowstorms that roll in suddenly, clouds that fracture sunlight into jagged rays, landscapes that shift character from hour to hour. “The environment should anticipate what the narrative has not yet said,” she adds. “It should make you feel the tension before your character even speaks.”

Joanna Wang

This sense of anticipation defines the difference between the two games. Tsushima showed how a minimalist interface could yield immersion. Yōtei builds on that principle, using next-gen technology to expand scale and dynamism. As Wang puts it: “We didn’t just want bigger. We wanted more alive.”

Before production began, Wang emphasized that the team spent months on groundwork: sketching, prototyping, and traveling to Hokkaido for visual and cultural reference. “You can’t invent authenticity from your desk,” she recalls. “Walking through the snow, seeing how light reflects differently in the north, sketching the way roofs hold weight—that’s how you start to build a world that feels real.”

Those research trips yielded hundreds of drawings and photos, documenting not only landscapes but also how people interacted with them. Snow covering tools left outside, or the way wind carved paths between trees, became the micro-details that informed Yōtei’s atmosphere. “Those sketches were more than drafts—they were our emotional compass,” Wang says. “They told us what the player should feel before we had a single cutscene.”

A recurring concern for Wang is cultural authenticity. In her words: “The hardest question we asked ourselves was: how does Ghost of Yōtei feel so Japanese even to Japanese people?” To answer it, the team consulted historians, linguists, and cultural experts, but Wang insists that authenticity also comes from aesthetics: “Japanese art values asymmetry, impermanence, the beauty of decay. If you don’t build those values into the environment, it won’t feel right, no matter how accurate the research is.”

That philosophy shapes everything from ruined shrines—“They’re not just scenery, they’re reminders of impermanence”—to drifting petals—“They’re not decorative, they’re time passing in front of you.”

Sometimes fidelity to tradition had to yield to playability. Wang recalls how the team confronted the scale of Japanese houses: “The doors were historically smaller, but they didn’t work with the way our characters moved. So we had to make them bigger.” Similarly, the traditional steep angle of roofs was softened to allow characters to climb and fight across them.

For Wang, these adjustments were not compromises but conversations between history and gameplay. “The point isn’t to build a museum,” she says. “It’s to create a world that feels true and playable at the same time.”

Early reviews suggest that players and critics are seeing exactly what Wang intended. She explains that “the world must be able to speak before the characters do,” and the game’s opening, in which protagonist Atsu inscribes a “hit list” on the touchpad, is a visual gesture of emotion before combat begins. Game Informer picked up on precisely that, calling it a moment that sets the tone without words. Wang emphasizes that immersion comes from details: “Silence is as important as noise. Light is as important as dialogue.” That approach is echoed in The Verge, which praised the quieter moments of camping, playing the shamisen, or tending to a fire as times when art direction becomes narrative.

Joanna Wang

She also notes the scale: “We wanted Yōtei to feel larger and more alive, not just prettier.” Kotaku’s review seems to validate that, describing the game as “an impressive but familiar experience,” yet underlining how its world feels sharper, larger, more atmospheric.

For Wang, the new hardware is valuable only when it serves mood. “Dynamic skies, shifting weather, light breaking through clouds—those are not tech features, they are emotions,” she insists. Critics on Metacritic agree, rating Yōtei higher than Tsushima in graphics, sound, and environmental immersion. Players too echo the point, with one Reddit user writing: “Ghost of Yōtei is a visual and sensorial journey that surpasses its predecessor … the world is gorgeous, the land is fun to explore.”

All of this returns to Wang’s central conviction: art direction is not an accessory. “It’s the architecture of emotion,” she says. “If you remove it, the game becomes hollow. If you get it right, the player feels something even when nothing is happening.”

In the same way Tsushima was hailed as a samurai poem rendered in pixels, Yōtei positions itself as something closer to an elegy—an ode to nature, impermanence, and survival. Joanna Wang and her team have woven cultural respect, technical innovation, and visual poetry into a seamless whole. The result is a world that breathes, shimmers, and unsettles in equal measure.

As Wang herself puts it: “You don’t just play Ghost of Yōtei—you walk through its paintings.”

Ghost of Yōtei is a PlayStation 5 exclusive, launching October 2, 2025.

Opening image: Ghost of Yōtei, due out in 2025, developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.