Sucker Punch Breaks Down Tech That Brought Ghost Of Yōtei's World To Life

Five years after Sucker Punch Productions released Ghost of Tsushima, its sequel, Ghost of Yōtei, has arrived, set in a different era of Japanese history and following the story of Atsu on a quest for revenge. The creative vision for Ghost of Yōtei was all about giving players more freedom to explore a big, wild world: the team worked on subtle ways to guide players, crafting beautiful environments, developing more flexible weapon combat, and delivering memorable characters and emotional story moments.

Achieving all of this while maintaining a stable frame rate was, of course, a significant challenge, and Adrian Bentley, Director of Programming from Sucker Punch Productions, has shared about a few aspects of the technology used to create Ghost of Yōtei.

Adrian talked about creating stunning environments and how Sucker Punch gave each area its own distinct personality, highlighting systems that let Atsu cut through tall grass and walk in deep snow, as well as features for rendering clouds and fog in the mountains. He also talked about characters, explaining how Atsu's detailed costumes move and how the environment responds in a realistic way, leaving her wet, bloody, muddy, or covered in snow.

As a native PS5 game, Ghost of Yōtei leveraged the console's advanced features to boost its image quality, and Adrian shared that the developers invested in two key areas: ray tracing and image upsampling with PSSR.

Read the breakdown here, and for those interested in Sucker Punch's technology and development process, the team plans to reveal more in 2026. Also, subscribe to our Newsletter, join our 80 Level Talent platform and our new Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.