Ghost of Yōtei Developers Tried Breath of the Wild-Styled Rock Climbing in Early Prototypes

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Since its release in October, Ghost of Yōtei has received positive feedback for its story and open-world gameplay. At a recent Game Developers Conference (GDC) panel, co-directors Nate Fox and Jason Connell revealed they originally considered adding rock climbing, similar to what’s found in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. A small team actually built a prototype of this feature while they were developing the core gameplay elements for the game.

Ultimately, rock climbing was cut from the final version of Ghost of Yōtei. According to Connell, it didn’t align with the game’s vision of a wandering samurai. He explained that the development team would ask themselves if a feature contributed to the feeling of being a wandering ronin, and if not, they would abandon it. “If it doesn’t feel right for the wandering ronin experience,” he said, “and it’s not working, why keep building it? Let’s move on.”

Fox explained that the goal for the rock climbing system was to let players climb absolutely anything in the game. The team quickly started building prototypes to test this idea. However, the open-world design of Ghost of Yōtei presented challenges. The game included walls players weren’t meant to climb, and Fox worried that if players had the ability to climb everywhere but found nothing interesting, they’d quickly stop trying. He felt that a lack of rewarding discoveries would discourage exploration.

Connell, the creator of Ghost of Yōtei, has talked about wanting to expand the game’s flashback system. He discussed this with Vince Gilligan (creator of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) last November, explaining that a more complex system could have enhanced storytelling by allowing players to better understand the main character, Atsu’s, feelings.

Connell explained that the game features a powerful narrative moment where the character Atsu transitions from a solitary journey to reconnecting with her motivations. He described how a single button press evokes a sense of warmth and remembrance of what she’s fighting for, making it a really effective storytelling technique because it allows players to feel that connection on their own.

Ultimately, the studio chose not to include the feature because it would have meant creating the same artwork multiple times. Players could activate it from almost anywhere in the game world, effectively duplicating the visual effect.

He explained that the feature would have essentially doubled the length of the game, impacting the entire experience. However, he ultimately had to remove it, a decision he regretted making, stating, ‘I had to say it just couldn’t be that big.’

The game Ghost of Yōtei is currently only available on PlayStation 5. While there were initial plans to release it on PC, those plans have been cancelled. The game recently added a new co-op multiplayer mode called Legends.

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2026-03-11 14:11