I know I'm not alone when I say that I have been waiting over 5 years for Ghost of Tsushima's successor to arrive, as that game left its mark on me and many others during one of the most tumultuous seasons of our lives, and I couldn't wait to see what Sucker Punch came up with next. Now, Ghost of Yotei is finally here, and I've already put somewhere around 15 hours into it, exploring Ezo on the back of my horse, Homura, bearing witness to one of the most beautiful open worlds I've ever seen. However, while I would like to say that everything I'm experiencing is fresh and new, I can't shake the feeling that I've played Ghost of Yotei before — and I don't mean Assassin's Creed Shadows.
When it was first announced, and later as even more details were disclosed, Ghost of Yotei was met with comparisons to Assassin's Creed Shadows. Ghost of Tsushima had already been compared to Assassin's Creed in general for its stealth gameplay, so those comparisons would understandably carry over to Ghost of Yotei as well. It's not just the gameplay that made Ghost of Yotei similar to Assassin's Creed Shadows, though, as the two shared a premise of a young woman's parents being murdered, thereby setting her on a path to revenge. But in the time I've already spent playing Ghost of Yotei, I've found it bears far more similarities to another of this year's top games than even Assassin's Creed Shadows — Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
Ghost of Yotei Is Basically Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in Japan
Both Games Share a Premise and Some Unique Mechanics
The most obvious similarity shared between Ghost of Yotei and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is their premise. Both protagonists — Ghost of Yotei's Atsu and Kingdom Come: Deliverance's Henry — are set on paths of revenge when their parents and homestead are killed and razed to the ground during a raid. While Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 doesn't center around the revenge narrative as much as its predecessor, it is nonetheless a continuation of the first game's story, and it finally sees Henry confront the one responsible for burning down his home and murdering his parents.
The similarities go much deeper than revenge, though, as both Henry's and Atsu's fathers happen to be swordsmiths who taught the protagonists the trade. Here, Ghost of Yotei and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 share some unique blacksmithing mechanics, to the point that, if I didn't know any better, I'd make the claim that Ghost of Yotei was ripping off Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Instead, it's clearly a coincidence just how alike the two are in that area, though Ghost of Yotei's blacksmithing mini-game is far more accessible and forgiving than Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's even more realistic blacksmithing system is.
Both Games Have Similar Open-World Design and Environmental Storytelling Methods
Something else Ghost of Yotei and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 have in common is their open-world design. Firstly, both games are deeply rooted in history, which inadvertently affects the way their open worlds are presented. Sure, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 might be even more historically accurate than Ghost of Yotei, but the two games still rely on real past events to shape their worlds. Secondly, each title features an open world that doesn't hold the player's hand and instead reacts to their presence, with plenty of random events and a non-linear structure to give players true freedom.
Ghost of Yotei and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 also employ similar environmental storytelling methods. In Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's open world, in particular, players can find plenty of optional locations that aren't tied to gameplay at all and instead are simply there to tell a story — like two dead archers who finished an archery standoff against one another with a draw. Ghost of Yotei's open world is very similar, seeing players stumble on small locations that, while they often feature valuables for players to retrieve, have no relation to gameplay, like quests or open-world events. For example, I encountered a site in Ghost of Yotei's Ezo where a person had been killed in front of a cart filled with goods, and I assumed they were robbed.
So, again, there's a sense of deja vu I'm getting playing Ghost of Yotei, as it clearly echoes the strengths of one of 2025's best games, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Of course, I've put around 250 hours into Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and this was after putting around 200 hours into the first game, so seeing these similarities in Ghost of Yotei is fairly easy for someone like me. However, I know I'm not the only one who at least picked up on how nearly identical Ghost of Yotei's blacksmithing is to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, on top of the revenge narrative the two games share. In short, if you've already played Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 in 2025, you might as well be playing it again when you boot up your PS5 for Ghost of Yotei.
Ghost of Yotei
-
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
- Genre(s)
- Action, Adventure, Open-World
