In recent days, PlayStation unveiled fresh gameplay footage for Ghost of Yōtei, feeding an ever-extending conversation that is slowly heating up some people, while others… not that much. The trailer shows off a very interesting new feature that lets you rewind time by just clicking a button and check into protagonist Atsu’s childhood. Put like that, it’s pretty neat. Of course, the usual internet reaction happened.
First, the neat stuff. The mechanic sounds like a really cool way to back up the plot while simultaneously keeping the player away from the dreaded extended cutscene. Imagine passing through a village scarred by war and suddenly, by pressing one button, it is revealed through the eyes of young Atsu that bright-and-vivid-consciousness mode is on. Heavy Last of Us Part II vibes, only with a heavier feudal Japan flavor. Other than that, it promised tighter swordplay than the first game with beautiful environments worthy of pushing the PS5 to its limits.
And then… the replies began.
The gamers obsessed with the protagonist’s design—or rather, obsessed with hating it. “Nice game but ugly main hero,” one player tweeted, already preparing for the PC mod that would “fix” Atsu’s face. Another said the character was a “butch lesbo” (so classy) and declared the game “disgustingly woke.” Then another just sighed: “Damn, it could be an awesome game instead this…”
But not everyone agreed. A couple of others are totally on board, with one excited fan calling it “GOTY 2025” right now. Another said using the time rewind feature would “unlock ’emotional damage,'” which is fair enough. At least one person admitted that they might go back and finish the first game after ditching it after three hours because the world felt “empty.” (Pro tip: It gets better.)
Then came… the weirdly aggressive back and forth about… something? One of the threads strayed into insults about “mentally ill activists” and “LGTV people”(??), while another user crowed that,” I’m 100% identify as non-buy-nary for this one.” Congratulations, dude!
Among the chaos were a few sane voices wondering if maybe appearance isn’t all that important in a game about slicing dudes with a katana. “Who gives a shit it’s not a porn game,” one dissenting reply said. Preach.
Regardless of you fancy or hate it, Ghost of Yōtei is destined to be a room-splitter. Gameplay innovations are legitimate, the art style is gorgeous, and the storyline gets deeply personal. If you ragequit because of a haircut, better bail out on this one.
Those who are down for it should keep the release date on their radar, along with an ever-growing list of keywords that they’ll want to mute on Twitter.
