Ghost of Yōtei's big gameplay showcase had new weapons, smoother exploration, and a 'lo-fi beats' mode from Samurai Champloo director Shinichirō Watanabe

After watching the Ghost of Yōtei State of Play stream, I'm convinced it'll be the sort of sequel that's more interested in refinement than reinvention. The 30-minute presentation showed off a lot of gameplay, particularly focusing on Atsu's expanded arsenal of blades and a new interrogation-based exploration system that looks really neat.

Oh, also there's a lo-fi beats to murder to mode with original tracks by legendary anime director Shinichirō Watanabe (Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop), because Sucker Punch can't help but be corny about the whole "playable samurai film" thing. Kurosawa mode also returns, this time elevated by optional Japanese voices and lip syncing (something the first game ought to have had at launch, but didn't).

But honestly, I'll be flipping those gimmicky modes off after two minutes. I'm playing Ghost of Yōtei for some exploratory slice-and-dice, something that we're not exactly starved for after Assassin's Creed Shadows dropped just a few months ago.

The similarities between the two western-developed, Japan-set games are hard to ignore, especially now that we know Ghost of Yōtei's new protagonist, Atsu, is on a vengeance quest to kill a band of evil bastards who killed her father… just like AC Shadows' Naoe. I suppose overlap is inevitable when you go with a cliche.

One big difference: Sucker Punch describes Atsu as neither a samurai or a ninja. She's a mercenary willing to use any weapon or "dirty trick" to get by. The big gameplay implication of that is that Atsu roams Japan armed with a variety of blades—katanas, spears, kusarigama (chain blades), odachi (long katanas), and dual swords. The five weapon types seem to replace the role of Ghost of Tsushima's katana stances. Atsu can swap weapons in the middle of combat, and each weapon counters different enemy types. Sucker Punch showed one example: The odachi long katana will slice up heavy enemies quickest.

We also saw the return of bows, plus that rifle from the reveal trailer last year. Judging by the way one bullet took down an enemy, I'm guessing Atsu's guns will be used sparingly.

Weapon swapping looks fun, but I'm a little sad Ghost of Yōtei is downplaying the katana. I liked having one signature weapon that carried me through the whole game—Jin's sword had real story significance behind it, and I don't think Atsu will be as precious about equipment.

My biggest highlight of the presentation was Ghost of Yōtei's updated flow for finding quests. Instead of a traditional quest screen, Atsu picks up leads by talking to her friends and interrogating baddies. At one point, we see this interrogation interpreted as a screen that lets you choose between a handful of quests the source could reveal, and what loot they lead to. On one hand, that's a cool way to find stuff, but it also looks very gamey to choose what quest info to extract instead of following a traditional, authored questline.

The show concluded with an ad for a Yōtei-ified PS5 console and controller, if you're into that sort of thing. Ghost of Yōtei is out October 2 on PS5. There's no PC date yet, but hopefully a port will come quicker than the first, which only arrived last year.