Art has given vengeance many avatars. Sometimes, it's a dark, formless entity that pollutes everything and everyone around it. Sometimes, it's a guy who dresses like a bat and beats the living hell out of people in the name of justice. In the world of gaming, it's a bald Spartan covered in the ashes of his dead family, leaving a trail of dead gods in his wake.

In Ghost of Yotei, it's a woman with a sword who spends most of her journey with her clothes painted in blood that isn't hers.

She is adorned in mementos of a family violently taken from her. On her back, a shamisen (Japanese lute), which she learned to play from her mother, who was murdered before her eyes. She has a deep scar on her left shoulder from being pinned via sword to a burning tree by someone who would become one of her mortal enemies. Her sword? A masterfully crafted katana from her swordsmith father — also slaughtered in front of her. She watched her younger brother get shot and fall to his death.

Her signature, however, is a sash she wears around her waist bearing the names of the six people responsible for the night her family was wiped out. When she ends someone on the list, she wipes their blood from her sword onto the sash … and their name, effectively crossing them off. It's one of the most badass things I've ever seen.

This is Atsu, the game's protagonist and the herald of Sucker Punch's intentions for this follow-up to its 2020 masterwork, Ghost of Tsushima. While the tale of Jin Sakai in Tsushima tackled the conflicting worlds of samurai honor, stealth, duty and familial bonds, the tale of Atsu is that of pure rage and blood revenge, and everything nasty and messy that comes with it. It's Arya Stark. It's the Bride in "Kill Bill." It's more of a samurai western/action movie than samurai epic. It's blissfully simple, straightforward, occasionally predictable but deftly executed.

I couldn't avoid comparing the two games during my 40-plus hours in Yotei, so let's not run from it here. It was fascinating to see the directions Sucker Punch took with the lead characters, directions that influenced the games' tone and play atmosphere. Tsushima's Jin Sakai is a classic samurai, prodigiously skilled with the sword and constantly battling his stoic samurai sensibilities with the need to take other measures and fight his battles differently. He essentially becomes feudal Batman in the process, known by the people as the Ghost.

Atsu of Ghost of Yotei is classic in a different sense; she is the archetypal "wandering swordsman," with the skill of a samurai but never accepted into their ranks, because woman. Instead, she became a battle-hardened mercenary, living coin to coin and serving anyone who'd pay. Her skills are based on fundamentals she learned in her youth (daughter of a swordsmith, after all) and, in her words 16 years later, "anyone who would teach her."

As a result, she moves much differently as a fighter than Jin, which is a novel touch from the design team. Jin fights with the technique of someone who's been formally trained all his life: precise, deadly, strong. Atsu's fountain of raw ability draws from a more feral place to compensate for her overall lack of size and mass, especially when it comes to her killing blows. When she slashes someone's midsection, she generates power from the legs and takes a couple of steps to finish the slash. She uses more of her body to down people, such as leaning into them to knock them to the ground, and then roll over them. It's fun to watch, and it reflects the care the design team has put into other core parts of the "Ghost" fluid combat system.

In Tsushima, Jin had a catalog of four stances to account for different opponents and their armaments, as he used only his sword as his core melee weapon. Yotei departs from this. Atsu doesn't have stances. Instead, she's able to use a variety of melee weapons and techniques in addition to her dad's katana: dual swords for people with polearms, the yari for those bearing sickles or chains, the odachi (BIG sword) for larger, brute-style enemies, and the kusarigama (sickle and chain) for people with shields.

I didn't know how I'd feel about this at first, as I rather liked the romance of the sword-centric ethos of the first game. However, it really works for Atsu, the war-experienced mercenary. Mastery of these weapons is key for surviving in combat, whether it's one-on-one or against a group of foes. A nice touch for Atsu is that to gain access to these core weapons, she has to seek out a sensei she learns about through word of mouth.

There's a greater sense of organic discovery in Ghost of Yotei when it comes to navigating the map in conjunction with the narrative. The game takes place 300 years after the events of Tsushima in the lands of Ezo, which are north of the main island of Honshu. Among those lands is the island of Hokkaido.

Since Atsu's journey is framed as a hunt, she has to explore and look for leads and intel on her targets, known as the Yotei Six. It's a vintage setup of a cast of odd bad guys who wore masks when they razed Atsu's home — the Snake; the Oni; the Kitsune (fox); the Spider; his brother the Dragon; and their father and leader of the group, Lord Saito, who has built an army and is trying to position himself as the "Shogun of the North."

Atsu finds places of interest on the map just by talking to people she encounters, whether that's peacefully on the road, at an inn, at her makeshift campsite or after a skirmish with bandits, ronin or Saito's forces. In those instances, she leaves one person alive so she can hold her sword to their face and interrogate them. Fans of the first game will recognize the return of "tales" along with "myths," which are exquisitely delivered by a wandering storyteller. The stories unfold with a series of illustrations, with the storyteller's voice serving as narrative. It's one of my favorite touches of the Ghost-verse. My favorite "myth" thus far deals with tracking down an undefeated swordsman named Takezo The Unrivaled. I faced him. It did not go well (at first).

Another nifty method of finding cool spots around Ezo is talking to a cartographer and buying his small maps. They function like puzzle pieces when you're looking at a greater section of the map, and it's on you to "place" those maps / pieces in the correct area to lock down the location. This can help lead you to a potpourri of ability-boosting spots around Ezo, such as hot springs to extend your life meter, bamboo strikes to add more nodules to Atsu's "spirit" (which enables her to unleash special attacks and heal), and prayer altars to help her learn unlock techniques that are part of a litany of skill trees.

One of my favorite things about Atsu, and Ghost of Yotei overall, is the implementation of the touchpad on the PS5 controller. It's a gateway to the arts, which are part of Atsu's background, and serves a narrative purpose. At the start of the game, you use the touchpad to scrawl the names of the Yotei Six onto Atsu's sash / kill list. You can use it to play Atsu's shamisen, complete with different songs. Some of those songs can trigger the game's signature "guiding wind" mechanic and guide Atsu to undiscovered areas on the map. Shamisen mastery also came in handy during a story mission. These elements add a unique layer to Atsu, and there's something hauntingly intimidating about someone who can quickly dispatch three guys in a standoff and then walk away from their corpses while playing a lute. Would you mess with that person?

I found the game's story to be enrapturing, probably because I've always been a sucker for a well-crafted revenge tale that's not looking to move mountains. It's that vibe of "here's the story, now watch how the hero pulls this off." There are layers to the characters within this framework, and there are a few solid twists that both broke and warmed my heart. The banter and dialogue felt top tier; I would watch this show if it were streaming. The performances of all the actors involved, as in the previous game, shouldn't be overlooked. Erika Ishii, the voice and face of Atsu, deserves all the honors for conveying the cocktail of pain, rage, strength and wit that someone like Atsu demands.

Ghost of Yotei is automatically one of my favorite games of 2025. It comes at a time when people just want to kick some ass in the most beautiful settings imaginable, and it's one of the more satisfying plays you'll find on the PS5. It's the most fun you'll have checking off a to-do list.

Score: 9.0/10