High-profile news to the community have come via PlayStation‘s main account, where they revealed the winner of ‘Best Graphical Showcase’ 2025 award just a moment ago. The game which grabbed the award is Ghost of Yōtei, the continuation of Sucker Punch’s snowy samurai story, now set in the northern region of Japan. Afterwards, it was the fans who got to cast their votes. Such a cool thing, isn’t it? The graphics of that game are already regarded as second to none—just think of the snow that gets shifted on your robe and the mountains that look enchanted and majestic. No doubt, it is a game with impressive visual quality. The incident blew up fast in this case—the responses were like putting a lit match in a box of fireworks.

In short, for those doing a quick read: the award for “best graphical showcase” of 2025 goes to Ghost of Yōtei as per the PlayStation fan vote. The announcement made through Twitter was followed by an instant and heated argument. While winter effects and the game’s artistic aspect were celebrated by a large number of players, part of the community fiercely attacked the voting process, arguing that pushing the title was particularly unfair when it had not even made it to the list of winners at top industry awards like The Game Awards. Critics referred to titles like Death Stranding 2 and Assassin’s Creed Shadows which were expected to release in 2025 and were believed to have better visuals thus leading the platform holder to be accused of favoritism and trying to promote themselves.

The response to this was a mixed one. The initial reaction was purely positive from the game’s die-hard fans. Users like @Statisight were quick to support the game’s win by calling it “Well deserved! Ray-traced snow in Hokkaido looks better than real life.” In addition, @Glitchymagic emphasized the interaction of snow with character models, stating it was beautiful. That atmosphere is all about the bright side. The people who experienced it were really impressed and could see the good mixture of technology and arts. @NovexFi claimed it is the way how the developers extend the limits of what is possible on consoles. To that, I would say it is fair. The Sucker Punch team has an elastic and enchanting way of working.

And then…. you can’t even begin to imagine. The other side of the coin brought nothing but skepticism and even animosity as its main offering. The most common comment in the replies to the announcement was not praise but accusations. A significant number of gamers were adamant that the whole election was a sham. A considerable amount of them. @DBaptistaSilva was blunt: “No fan voted for this. YOU voted for this… You just can’t handle the FLOP of Yōtei.” Ouch. That is a pretty nasty opinion. The same feelings were expressed by @WalletInspecto4 who posted, “Funny how Sony feels the need to award itself while the industry as a whole decided you deserve zero awards.”

And this seems to be the key disagreement in the matter. Ghost of Yōtei, although praised by the critics, was not even able to conquer all the awards at last year’s major events. Hence, gamers view PlayStation giving its internal “Best Graphics” trophy to its exclusive game as… rather suspicious. @pickyourownnose was candid: “It is so surreal how Yōtei ‘wins’ all the awards from its publisher but has not been nominated for the VGAs lol.” It is that idea of an echo chamber that, you know? Like, who were these ‘fans’ that voted? @proxzyn simply asked, “Release the voting data.” The trust is… definitely not there.

Next, we have to discuss the actual argument over the game’s graphic quality. Because even if the voting issue is set aside, there are still people who do not agree that Yōtei was the best. And that is precisely where we enter the realm of the classic gamer debates. @PANCAKEPAP1 argued that “fidelity-wise, Death Stranding 2 has it beat by a wide margin.” @Brev2034 just stated “Ds2 was by far the better looking game.” And @SuliemanAyub mentioned Assassin’s Creed Shadows suggesting that its visuals were way better. So you see, there is not even a consensus as to who deserves it the most! Some, like @Katgirlxmeow, just were not sure if it was the top choice in a year with so many excellent titles.

Moreover, the debate went completely off track, and memes started appearing. You had @MrTupids calling it “Ghost of Ugly” and giving the main character’s visuals a rating of 3/10. That was very harsh. @duru_tobe dimmed the lights by saying “visuals that make you forget the gameplay,” which is a sentiment shared by some fans of the rival Xbox platform. Meanwhile, the excitement for upcoming collaborations, like the one from Studio Pierrot, continues to build elsewhere.