Sucker Punch’s Ghost of Tsushima was already one of the most beautiful games ever released when it launched on PS4 back in 2020, but the studio’s upcoming successor Ghost of Yotei aims to take things one leap further. 

In an interview with Automaton, art director Joanna Wang explained that the generational jump from PS4 to PS5 allows the game to have a massively increased density of assets. Tsushima was already filled to the brim with thick blades of grass across its rolling hills, but it was quite obvious where the game’s draw distance stopped. 

For Yotei, improving the game’s draw distance was paramount to increasing the game’s immersion and visual fidelity with the game now simultaneously rendering “millions of assets” to make the world more lifelike while keeping its stylistic visuals. 

“For Yotei, we realized very quickly that we needed to improve draw distance,” Wang said. “To portray the vastness of the Hokkaido map, we needed to be able to render distant views with high fidelity and accurate depth of space.”

“We can now load millions of assets, with tens of thousands visible on-screen at once. Real-time particles like leaves, snow, ash and fog number in the hundreds of thousands across both near and far distances,” they continued. “We were able to improve the look of starry skies, auroras, time-of-day transitions, grass rendering, and terrain deformation – like realistically kicking snow off trees. Altogether, these make the world feel more alive and interactive. I think that’s the power of the PS5.”

Ghost of Yotei also sports larger environments than its predecessor with the game now on the mainland landmass instead of the island of Tsushima. While the game’s rendering is more realistic, the team is still aiming for the same “painterly look” with fields of bold colours and unrealistic skyboxes that draw a sense of fantastical realism instead of just the plain, old real-world.

“For example, in a grass field, we might add only white flowers for horses to gallop through, but avoid mixing too many colours. This is related to the minimalism I mentioned earlier, as it draws attention to what matters – the white foreground (flowers) against the green background (grass),” the art director said. 

Ghost of Yotei releases exclusively on PS5 on October 2, 2025. While unconfirmed, a PC version of the game is expected to release at a later date.