In a recent post on the Playstation Blog, developer Sucker Punch Productions’ co-creative director Nate Fox has stated that the devs are committed to depict the native culture and the indigenous people of Japan in a respectful and sincere way in their upcoming Ghost of Yotei.“When setting a game in Hokkaido we knew a crucial element was doing our best to represent Ainu culture in a respectful way,” Nate Fox stated. Regarding their efforts to portray the lands and it’s culture in as authentic way as possible, he explained: “Thankfully we’d connected with an Ainu cultural adviser before setting out on our reference gathering trip.”
The team were also invited by the adviser to meet her family, which led to the devs of Ghost of Yotei getting to venture in the mountains of Japan which offered them a more direct experience with the lands. “It was a lovely way to make new friends and start our journey in learning about Ainu culture. That night we resolved to put foraging into our new game, we wanted players to be able to share (our) experience.”
Fox also shared how the unique geographical features of the lands have found their way into the upcoming game, both visually and thematically: the “proliferation of cherry trees on the peninsula, brought there from Honshu, yet uncommon in the rest of the island. That really told the story of how sparsely settled Hokkaido was in 1603 by the Wajin people,” he elaborated. “We’ve tried to mimic that quality in the game, leaning into areas of wilderness between homesteads.”
Overall, the team’s research trip in Japan has helped them to embody a feeling of authenticity into Ghost of Yotei that’ll help players immerse themselves in the game world more easily: “while our version of Hokkaido is fictional, the feeling of authenticity we strive to create has roots in those real world experiences,” Fox concluded.
This fascinating amount of attention and care is what makes a videogame far more than just a game, and it’d be interesting to see how it all impacts Ghost of Yotei when it arrives on 2 October, 2025.
