Ghost of Yotei Graphics Analysis – Sucker Punch’s Next-Gen Leap on PS5 is Magnificent

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Ghost of Tsushima was a major game released near the end of the PlayStation 4’s lifespan, and Sucker Punch Productions created a truly impressive experience. The game looked beautiful, with a strong artistic style and solid technology, and the upcoming sequel seems to be continuing that high level of quality.

The highly anticipated sequel, *Ghost of Yotei*, is now available, and it builds upon everything players loved in the first game with exciting new features. While you can find a full review elsewhere, this article dives into the technical side of *Ghost of Yotei* – exploring the changes made, how it stacks up against the original, and more. Let’s get started!

Graphics Overview – How Has It Changed In Comparison To Tsushima?

Sucker Punch Productions developed *Ghost of Tsushima* using their own game engine. While it wasn’t necessarily the most technically advanced game on the PlayStation 4, it was strikingly beautiful. The game’s strong artistic vision, quality textures, and attention to detail created a consistently gorgeous experience without needing cutting-edge graphics technology.

While *Ghost of Yotei* doesn’t drastically change the core gameplay of *Tsushima*, it noticeably improves the game’s technical details, making it visually polished and impressive. The game leverages modern rendering technologies like ray-tracing, and increased processing power has allowed the developers to enhance several aspects of how the game looks.

The improvements in Ghost of Yotei are gradual and build upon the existing foundation of the game. Whether it’s enhanced environments, more expressive character faces, dynamic weather systems, or smoother animations, the developers have expanded on what was already successful, making the new features feel integrated and natural within the overall experience.

Character Models 

The characters in *Ghost of Yotei* look fantastic, with detailed models that are as good as those found in many modern games. They’re built with a lot of detail, which really shows when the lighting is done well. Their clothing is also impressive – it’s made of realistic materials that move naturally with the wind.

A major improvement in *Yotei* is the enhanced motion capture technology. This allows for incredibly detailed and realistic facial expressions, something Sucker Punch teased in the trailers, and it truly shines in gameplay.

Environment 

The environments in *Ghost of Tsushima* were truly exceptional, and *Yotei* continues that trend. Sucker Punch has created a beautifully realized world that feels like a work of art, perfectly capturing the atmosphere of Ezo-era Japan. It was the most memorable part of the game.

The world features a seamless blend of rolling hills, vibrant flower fields, lively villages, and even active volcanoes and rivers, creating a truly authentic feel. While textures sometimes have slight imperfections around the edges, they generally appear sharp and detailed. Compared to Tsushima, Yotei utilizes a brighter color scheme, which enhances the atmosphere and overall visual style.

The game’s environments are lush and detailed, filled with trees, grass, and flowers that realistically move with the wind, similar to the island of Tsushima. Both trees and rocks have complex, natural shapes, and surfaces – from character clothing to environmental objects – interact with light and reflections as you’d expect. Rough materials like iron and stone don’t reflect much light, while smoother surfaces like katana blades or water accurately show reflections.

The game features impressive terrain effects – when you walk through mud or snow, your footsteps leave realistic, dynamically created trails. These details are remarkably well-done, and the game handles multiple trails overlapping without any visual errors. It appears the developers were inspired by the technology used in the Decima Engine, and the result is visually stunning.

Yotei features diverse and beautiful water effects throughout its expansive world. You’ll encounter everything from flowing streams and icy patches to soft mountain snow. The way light reflects and the quality of the materials change depending on whether the water is liquid, frozen, or snow-covered. While water doesn’t melt dynamically, the overall visual effect is quite impressive.

Let’s discuss how streaming works in *Yotei*. Sucker Punch really leveraged the PS5’s powerful processor and graphics card to make it impressive. Objects appear much further away with a high level of detail, and that detail doesn’t noticeably decrease as things get distant. The game smoothly loads new details as you move around, with very little noticeable loading or visual glitches.

Lighting and Reflections

Now let’s talk about the lighting. This game uses a ray-tracing system, which is a significant upgrade from the lighting in *Ghost of Tsushima*. Creating the realistic look of the *Yotei* world relies heavily on how light bounces and indirectly illuminates surfaces, so a basic lighting system wouldn’t have been sufficient. Fortunately, the PlayStation 5’s hardware helps accelerate ray tracing without drastically impacting performance.

The game features consistently high-quality reflections and accurate lighting, which often create a very realistic world. With dynamic day and night cycles and potential weather hazards, using ray tracing enhances these transitions, making them feel smooth and natural.

The game’s real-time rendering technology also extends to the shadows, creating impressively realistic effects from both direct and bounced lighting. These shadows are highly detailed and cast over a wide area, contributing to a consistent visual style. Thanks to the PlayStation 5’s powerful hardware, you’ll notice a significant reduction in shadow-related visual glitches.

Animations 

Building on recent progress in motion capture technology, *Ghost of Yotei* further enhances its animations. The sword fighting and action sequences draw inspiration from the films of Akira Kurosawa, combining realistic samurai techniques with dynamic, stylized movements. Combat animations flow seamlessly, and enemies realistically react to player attacks. New fighting stances add even more moves and animations, giving players a wider range of combat options.

Beyond battles, *Ghost of Yotei* features impressive details and interactions everywhere you look. From the way your horse moves across varied landscapes to snow realistically accumulating and falling from trees, and even subtle facial expressions showing the characters are feeling the cold, the game is packed with small animations that bring the world to life and create a uniquely immersive experience.

Particle Effects And Other Post-Processing 

The visual effects in *Ghost of Yotei* are particularly impressive, especially when it comes to details like particles. Sucker Punch Productions is known for creating fantastic particle effects – think of the powers in *Infamous* or the sparks in *Ghost of Tsushima* – and *Yotei* continues that tradition. The game features high-quality particles during combat and explosions, combined with effects like motion blur, which really enhances the overall visual experience.

The game Yotei makes extensive use of fog and smoke for various effects. You’ll see it highlighting important locations, creating realistic lighting with smoke bombs, and establishing a grand sense of scale with distant fog. The density of the smoke varies depending on what’s needed, and these techniques are also combined to show weather hazards like typhoons and blizzards, or to create clouds in the open sky.

Finally, the game uses a technology called PlayStation Super Resolution, or PSSR, to smooth out rough edges and reduce visual imperfections without impacting performance.

Conclusion

Ghost of Yotei builds upon the strengths of Ghost of Tsushima, offering noticeable improvements. While it doesn’t revolutionize graphics technology, it’s still a visually stunning game thanks to its beautiful art style, diverse environments, and impressive attention to detail. It’s a worthy sequel to Ghost of Tsushima and is likely to be considered one of the best-looking games of the year.

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2025-09-25 21:13