“If you’re going to tell a ghost story, do it in a dramatic location,” says Sucker Punch’s Nate Fox, who praised Hokkaido’s beauty

It’s been a long wait for Ghost of Yōtei, the sequel to Sucker Punch’s critically acclaimed and commercially successful Ghost of Tsushima. Set over 300 years later, this time in Ezo (later known as Hokkaido), the narrative is about Atsu, who seeks revenge after the Yōtei Six slaughter her family.

As with Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch is aiming to “deliver a feeling of authenticity and believability to our fictional story.” On the PlayStation Blog, game director Nate Fox reveals that the team settled on Hokkaido because it’s “unbelievably beautiful.”

“In 1603, it was the edge of the Japanese empire. Back then, it was called Ezo, a mysterious island to the north, sparsely populated by Wajin (Japanese) people bold enough to build a life for themselves in the cold wilderness. This combination of beauty and danger spoke to us.” Fox believes it’s the “perfect place to tell Atsu’s tale; a warrior so driven by revenge that locals start to believe she’s an onryō walking the land. If you’re going to tell a ghost story, do it in a dramatic location.”

The development team undertook two trips to gather references, one to Shiretoko National Park, where the “natural beauty” of the ocean and cliffs coexist with predators like bears. “Suddenly we had to split our attention between gazing up at the beautiful snowcapped mountains and looking down at the nearby bushes in case there was a predator nearby.

“That experience was magic! A perfect marriage of beauty and danger, that was the exact feeling we wanted for our game.” It’s ultimately what made Fox believe that the location was “the right choice” for the game.

The second trip saw the team encounter the titular Mt. Yōtei or the “Female Mountain” as the Ainu called it. Fox felt that it was a “symbol of Hokkaido” and for Atsu, “It’s a symbol of home and of the family she lost. This process of being there, talking about the game with locales and then synthesizing new ideas is what made the trip so fulfilling.”

Fox teased that the developer spoke to a “wealth of knowledgeable individuals and visited important cultural sites” to learn more about Japanese culture but that more will be revealed later. Stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks.

Ghost of Yōtei launches on October 2nd for PS5, with pre-orders now available.