The epic open-world game Ghost of Tsushima was a massive success with critics and fans, and the game’s developer Sucker Punch Productions just announced an equally epic sequel. The follow-up will be titled Ghost of Yotei and will be released in 2025. What is the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima about, and will Ghost of Yotei enjoy the same success as its predecessor?

Ghost of Tsushima transported fans to a war-torn feudal Japan during an actual historical event. The sequel, titled Ghost of Yotei, will return to Japan’s feudal era, but is set in 1603, some 300 years after the events of the original. This period marks the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate, which is what the TV series Shōgun was building towards. It is set in a remote region surrounding Mount Yōtei. Little has been revealed about the plot, but the trailer references a “hunter”, who seems likely to be someone on a quest for vengeance, and who will, in turn, be hunted by “every ronin here”. Fans have theorized that the plot will include historical events surrounding the Matsumae clan and their attempts to colonize the region and forcefully incorporate the indigenous Ainu people into the growing nation of Japan.

Andrew Goldfarb, Senior Communications Manager for Sucker Punch Productions, wrote in a blog post that they were excited to introduce fans to a new region in Ghost of Yotei. He explained that they chose to abandon the protagonist, Jin Sakai, and the setting of the original, in favor of giving fans “a new protagonist, a new story to unfold, and a new region of Japan to explore”. Contrasting the two games, he said that Yotei will be “a far cry from the organized samurai clans who lived in Tsushima”, which leads me to believe that it will feel more like the Seven Samurai or Yojimbo era of Akira Kurosawa samurai films.

Ghost of Yotei will release in 2025 as a Playstation exclusive.