🔗 Share this article

PlayStation supporters and opponents rarely agree.

However a single issue which has been voiced by everyone.

"What happened to the games?"

Expensive, single-player hits from internal studios have traditionally been the cornerstone to the company's hardware dominance.

Throughout the last generation period, users received a consistent flow of story-rich experiences, but this has felt more like a slow drip since last year's Spider-Man 2.

Yet, PlayStation's latest release – Ghost of Yōtei – signals a comeback to its proven premium style.

The Reason for So Long?

The studio's recent project is a follow-up to the earlier Japanese history-based title Ghost of Tsushima, among the most recent big PlayStation-only releases from Sony.

"Titles need a considerable duration to develop, so it's an enormous chunk of your life," says Nate.

Ghost of Yōtei transfers the setting a several hundred miles north, to the Honshū location, and the time period a few hundred years afterward, to the year 1603.

Now, the story revolves around a character named Atsu, a heroine on a journey to seek retribution against the Yōtei Six – a faction of rulers accountable for her family's demise.

With a prior title to expand upon, it's not quite a brand new beginning but, Fox clarifies, the project is nevertheless a enormous effort.

Merely having a fresh protagonist, for case, requires contribution from scriptwriters, animators and design artists, to name just a few of the roles required.

Backstage there are many, many more contributors.

A Massive Team Project

Although Sucker Punch has approximately 200 staff at its base near Washington, many hundreds work on its projects.

The end credits for Ghost of Tsushima, for case, included around 1,800 individuals.

Some of these will be from abroad, or from outside companies that focus in certain technical disciplines.

"Creating a game requires a wide range of distinct talents, from incredibly technical people... to individuals who are highly focused on narrative, like our writing staff," explains Nate.

"Plus all these groups work in harmony. It's like conducting an ensemble.

"One have to have every pieces coming together."

Nate states that a dizzying variety of factors can be part of a individual sequence – from audio to the code that makes particles drift through the scene at a crucial juncture.

"Each group must have a sense of the overall direction," concludes Fox.

A Change in Focus

Strategic vision is an aspect the community have criticized Sony of missing in recent years.

With its previous head, Jim Ryan, the division began production on a dozen online multiplayer projects, called "live-service" experiences in the gaming sector.

Some of the best-known examples, such as Fortnite, the sandbox platform and the military shooter, retain fans involved for long periods and produce massive sums of money.

Sony has had positive results in the area with the previous year's Helldivers II, but an disastrous flop with Concord, which was taken offline merely two weeks after its debut.

The company has since scrapped multiplayer games inspired by some of its biggest series, including God of War and The Last of Us.

Pursuing the multiplayer sector is a plan the company has acknowledged is not entirely "going smoothly", but it's explained some releases with online elements, such as the driving simulator and sports simulation MLB: The Show, have been successful.

The stars of its recent promotional stream were an upcoming game, a follow-up to 2021's Returnal, and the long-awaited Wolverine game from web-slinger studio Insomniac – the two story-driven experiences.

Debate and Attention

Big games can frequently be magnets for conflict, as the developer recently discovered when a staff member's comment about the passing of conservative activist personality a public figure triggered a backlash.

The developer finally fired the employee involved, and co-founder Brian Fleming said that "applauding or making light of an individual's killing is a unacceptable for the company", when interviewed about it.

Some conservative entertainment personalities have also criticized Ghost of Yōtei for featuring a woman hero.

Fox says it was an "atypical choice", but essential to the tale the team aimed to share of an unlikely hero challenging society's conventions.

As the story advances, the character's legend as an supernatural being – a wrathful apparition featured in Japanese mythology – grows.

"The public believe it's impossible a female could have taken out members of the the group unless she is a mythical {creature|