Ghost of Yōtei and The Last of Us Part I offer fundamentally different journeys. Yōtei is built around choosing where to go in an expansive wilderness, while Part I channels you through a cross-country survival story shaped by Joel’s responsibility for Ellie. The comparison is therefore not “which open world is bigger?” but whether you prefer exploratory freedom and a revenge-driven character arc, or directed movement, environmental storytelling and a tightly focused companion relationship.
This article uses “The Last of Us” to mean The Last of Us Part I, the original Joel-and-Ellie story and its remake, not the wider franchise. It avoids plot spoilers beyond each game’s official premise.
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
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Ghost of Yōtei PS5 | $53.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Ghost of Yotei (PS5) | $52.95 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Riders Republic PlayStation 5 Standard Edition | $25.95 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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Perp The Persistence Enhanced Amélioré(e) Anglais PlayStation 5 | $18.18 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
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Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut | $43.80 | Buy on Amazon |
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At a glance: two journeys built on different priorities
| Comparison point | Ghost of Yōtei | The Last of Us Part I |
|---|---|---|
| Setting | 1603 Ezo, identified by Sucker Punch as present-day Hokkaido, around Mount Yōtei; grasslands, snowy tundras and an untamed frontier outside Japan’s rule at the time. | A ravaged civilization crossed by Joel and Ellie during a dangerous journey across the United States. |
| World structure | An expansive wilderness designed around curiosity, longer sightlines and less intrusive guidance. | A chapter-based, cross-country narrative journey. PlayStation’s official description does not call it an open-world game. |
| Story engine | Atsu hunts the people who killed her family, with the story framed as reaching beyond vengeance toward healing and redemption. | Joel is hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie out of a military quarantine zone; the assignment develops into a brutal cross-country journey. |
| Player-facing emphasis | Freedom to explore, flexible weapon combat, memorable characters and emotional story moments. | The Joel-and-Ellie relationship, environmental storytelling, updated controls, accessibility options, and improved exploration and combat in the remake. |
| Release context | Released for PlayStation 5 on October 2, 2025. Sony lists Standard, Digital Deluxe and Collector’s Editions; current stock and pricing vary by region and date. | Released for PlayStation 5 on September 2, 2022. PlayStation also lists a PC version, with the Left Behind prequel chapter included in the listed Standard Edition. |
The key distinction is structural. Yōtei’s official descriptions explicitly emphasize free exploration in wilderness. Part I’s official summary emphasizes the destination, the relationship and the hazards encountered along the route, not a free-roaming map. Both games can let you investigate spaces and choose how to handle encounters, but they ask you to exercise that agency in different-sized frameworks.
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Yōtei treats the landscape as an invitation
Sucker Punch places Atsu in 1603, around Mount Yōtei in Ezo, a region it identifies with present-day Hokkaido. The setting is described through grasslands, snowy tundras and a frontier that was outside Japan’s rule at that time. That geography is not merely backdrop: the studio says the game is designed as an untamed wilderness in which players follow curiosity.
#1 Best Overall
- Stunning graphics and gameplay, explore the wild and striking lands around Mount Yotei on foot or horseback. Travel picturesque parts of northern Japan through grasslands, snowy ridges, fields of wildflowers, and more.
- Discover renegade combat, engage in lawless katana combat and battles with adversaires. Train with various sensei as you find and learn to use each new weapon.
- An unconventional story and journey, take in the cultural beauty of Japan, bathe in an onsen, visit shrines to pray, try Sumi-e painting, and so much more.
- Choose your weapon, battle Atsu's opponents as you see fit, with levelled-up dual katanas, odachi, kusarigama and other new weapons.
The studio’s October 2025 technical deep dive describes longer sightlines and less intrusive guidance. In practical terms, that means the world is intended to communicate possibilities without constantly covering the screen with directions. A distant landmark, a visible route through the terrain or something that catches your attention can become the reason you change course. The exact amount of optional content, map size and completion time is not stated in the cited official material, so those should not be treated as measurable advantages.
Part I is a directed journey, not an equivalent open world
PlayStation summarizes Part I as Joel smuggling Ellie from a military quarantine zone, with the job turning into a brutal journey across a collapsed civilization. That framing establishes movement through a sequence of places and escalating situations. It does not establish that every section is strictly linear, and the remake does include improved exploration, but the official product description does not label the game open-world.
You therefore should not compare the games as if they offered two versions of the same map formula. Part I’s spaces are built to support suspense, encounters and environmental storytelling around Joel and Ellie. Their boundaries and pacing serve the story’s progression. Yōtei, by contrast, makes wandering itself one of the advertised pleasures.
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“More open” is a design comparison, not a promise that every activity in Yōtei can be tackled in any order. The supported distinction is that Yōtei foregrounds freedom in an expansive wilderness, whereas Part I foregrounds a cross-country narrative route. If your ideal game lets you stop following the immediate objective because a landscape detail looks interesting, Yōtei is the closer fit. If you want exploration that is carefully timed to a cinematic survival story, Part I is built for that experience.
Exploration, guidance and the feeling of travel
Yōtei: curiosity before checklist
Less intrusive guidance changes the rhythm of play. Instead of treating navigation as a series of map instructions, Yōtei’s stated approach gives the environment more responsibility for directing attention. Longer sightlines can make a ridge, valley or distant feature legible from farther away, helping you make a decision before opening a menu.
This approach also leaves room for self-directed pacing. You can pursue Atsu’s objective, pause to investigate a visual lead or simply cross the landscape because the route looks compelling. That freedom supports the game’s emotional premise: a personal mission that begins with vengeance but is described by Sony as reaching toward healing and redemption. The wilderness becomes a place in which detours and encounters can reshape how the journey feels, even when the central goal remains clear.
Rank #2
- Discover a bold, new story of a warrior in Japan who is on her own mission of vengeance.
- Set 300 years after the critically acclaimed Ghost of Tsushima, Ghost of Yōtei is a standalone experience set in 1600s rural Japan. The story follows a haunted, lone mercenary named Atsu. Thirsty for revenge, she travels through the beautiful, rugged landscapes of northern Japan, hunting those who killed her family many years earlier.
- Sixteen years after her family’s death, Atsu’s quest across Ezo brings her to unexplored lands in search of a gang of six outlaws, but she finds much more than vengeance. Throughout her journey, Atsu will discover unlikely allies, and greater bonds than she could have imagined.
Part I: exploration in service of tension
The remake’s product description highlights environmental storytelling and improved exploration rather than a newly open-ended world. Rooms, streets and wilderness areas can reward careful observation, but the pressure comes from what those spaces imply about the people who lived or died there, and from the danger of moving through them with limited security.
That produces a different kind of discovery. In Yōtei, a vista can suggest a destination. In Part I, an abandoned structure, a note or a changed room can reveal the history of a place and deepen the stakes of the next encounter. Both games ask you to look closely; they use looking for different narrative purposes.
Why the distinction matters during a first playthrough
- Choose Yōtei if you want the landscape to be a primary source of direction and are comfortable setting your own short-term goals.
- Choose Part I if you prefer exploration that is paced around a defined route, escalating danger and the evolving Joel-and-Ellie relationship.
- Do not infer a universal quality ranking from the structure. Openness benefits players who enjoy self-directed travel; directed spaces benefit players who value momentum and controlled suspense.
How the stories differ without spoiling later events
Atsu’s revenge, healing and redemption
Ghost of Yōtei follows Atsu as she pursues the people who killed her family. Sony’s launch material deliberately places that revenge motive alongside a broader description: Sucker Punch studio head Brian Fleming calls it “a story of healing and redemption that runs deeper than vengeance, told through the eyes of a new hero set in the breathtaking edge of Japan.”
That wording signals a character arc rather than a simple revenge checklist. The initial objective gives the journey urgency, while the official framing asks how a person can move beyond the harm that set the journey in motion. Encounters with other characters and the emotional moments Sucker Punch highlights are therefore part of the story’s intended weight, not distractions from the main hunt.
Joel and Ellie’s survival journey
Part I starts with a practical assignment. Joel is hired to smuggle 14-year-old Ellie out of a military quarantine zone. The job becomes a cross-country journey through a ravaged civilization, and the relationship between the two travelers is the central organizing force of the experience.
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Rank #3
- Battle against over 50 players simultaneously in a massive multiplayer playground.
- Compete in an all-out mass start race—collide, grind, and fight your way to the finish
- Customize your character to show off your style to your friends or show up the competition.
- Bike, ski, snowboard, or wingsuit through a seamless open world in Career mode or multiplayer events.
- Go wild on the heights of iconic US national parks like Yosemite, Zion, and Bryce Canyon.
Different kinds of emotional investment
Yōtei asks you to inhabit Atsu’s pursuit and to see whether vengeance can lead somewhere else. Part I asks you to spend sustained time with two people whose practical need to keep moving gradually becomes the emotional reason the journey matters. One arc is framed around transformation beyond revenge; the other is framed around responsibility, survival and a relationship tested by an unforgiving world.
Calling one “the better story” would be a preference claim. The useful question is which emotional structure you want to follow: a solitary-seeming mission broadened by encounters and redemption, or a dangerous route whose meaning rests on a developing partnership.
Protagonists, companions and point of view
Atsu’s perspective
Yōtei gives you a new hero in a new region roughly 300 years after the events associated with Ghost of Tsushima. PlayStation’s FAQ is explicit that it is not a direct story sequel, even though Sucker Punch is evolving design ideas and mythos from that earlier game. Atsu’s identity and the 1603 Ezo setting establish a fresh starting point for players who have never played the earlier title.
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The emphasis on flexible weapon combat supports that perspective. The official design account presents combat choice, memorable characters and emotional story moments as complementary parts of Atsu’s journey. It is not described as a retelling of an existing hero’s path.
Joel and Ellie’s shared viewpoint
Part I’s premise is inseparable from its pair. Joel’s job provides the immediate reason to travel; Ellie’s age and circumstances make the assignment morally and emotionally complicated. You are not simply moving an avatar across a map. You are accompanying two characters whose dependence on one another changes how each danger is perceived.
The remake preserves that original Joel-and-Ellie story while updating controls, accessibility options, exploration and combat. Naughty Dog game director Matthew Gallant described the aim as giving returning players “new depths of emotion and humanity in the storytelling” and “new tension and intensity in the improved gameplay and combat.” That is a statement about the remake’s goals, not a claim that it is more open than Yōtei.
Rank #4
- PS5 Features include raytracing modes and immersive haptic feedback for DualSense
- Use darkness and cover to avoid being overwhelmed by the ship's deadly new inhabitants
- Seek out the weapon fabricators to increase your firepower as you journey deeper, into the dark and terrifying depths, but beware ammo is limited
- Gather materials & schematics for weapon upgrades and suit customizations with buffs
- Harvest DNA material to improve health, toughness and defensive capabilities.Survive an ever changing labyrinth. Each and every expedition into The Persistence will be disorienting and different.Death is just the beginning. Fatal encounters will result in Zimri's consciousness being uploaded into a new cloned body, ready to try again, with any upgraded stats, suits & weapon schematics kept to aid the next attempt to save the ship
Combat and player agency
Yōtei’s flexibility
Sucker Punch specifically cites flexible weapon combat among Yōtei’s design priorities. Combined with wilderness freedom, that points to a game in which agency appears in two linked forms: deciding where to go and deciding how to approach threats when you arrive. The official material does not provide a complete weapon list, difficulty breakdown or numerical comparison with Part I, so those details should be checked in current game documentation rather than guessed.
Part I’s improved remake combat
The PS5 description for Part I emphasizes improved exploration and combat alongside updated controls and accessibility options. Those changes are aimed at making the established survival journey more responsive and approachable, not at converting it into an open-world game. Encounters remain part of the route through the story, and the tension comes from choosing when to move, hide, observe or fight within the space the chapter provides.
Agency has different boundaries
In Yōtei, agency begins with route selection and extends into how you spend time in the wilderness. In Part I, agency is concentrated inside individual encounters and explorable areas while the overall journey remains directed. Neither model is inherently deeper. They reward different habits: curiosity and detour-taking in Yōtei; observation, resource awareness and deliberate movement in Part I.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Setting, tone and pacing
Yōtei’s frontier atmosphere
Grasslands, snowy tundras and long views give Yōtei a frontier character. The fact that Ezo is described as outside Japan’s rule in 1603 reinforces the sense of a borderland rather than a settled center. That atmosphere supports a pace that can expand and contract: a long ride or walk across open terrain can sit beside a concentrated emotional scene.
Part I’s ruined-civilization pressure
Part I’s world is defined by collapse. The journey passes through a civilization damaged by catastrophe, so even quiet spaces carry evidence of what happened to the people who occupied them. The tone is survival-focused and tense, with environmental storytelling doing as much work as dialogue to establish danger and loss.
How pacing changes the emotional effect
Yōtei’s openness can make time feel personally chosen. You may spend longer with a landscape before returning to the revenge plot, allowing atmosphere and optional encounters to shape your interpretation of Atsu. Part I controls the alternation between danger, travel and character scenes more tightly, which helps the Joel-and-Ellie relationship accumulate pressure without requiring you to set your own route.
Best Value
- Beyond war, ancient beauty endures: Roam vast countryside and expansive terrain to encounter rich characters, discover ancient landmarks and uncover the hidden beauty of Tsushima.
- The rise of the Ghost: Seek support from old friends and new unlikely allies to reclaim Tsushima.
- Mud, Blood and steel: challenge opponents with your katana for an immersive Samurai combat experience.
- Become legends together: play with friends or via online matchmaking in a series of two-player story missions or four-player wave-based survival missions in the legends online co-op
- A whole new island to explore: Travel to Iki Island to investigate rumors of a Mongol presence in a brand-new story with deeply personal stakes.
Is Ghost of Yōtei a sequel to Ghost of Tsushima?
No. PlayStation describes Yōtei as a standalone story rather than a direct story sequel. It takes place approximately 300 years later, introduces Atsu as a new protagonist and moves the setting to Ezo around Mount Yōtei. Sucker Punch is carrying forward elements of its design and mythos, but you do not need to treat Yōtei as the next chapter of Jin Sakai’s story.
That distinction also helps explain why it is a useful comparison with Part I. Both are accessible as distinct narrative experiences, but they represent different kinds of continuity: Yōtei follows a new hero in a later historical period, while Part I is the definitive remake presentation of Joel and Ellie’s original journey.
Release, platform and edition context
| Game | Platforms identified by the cited official pages | Release date | Edition information | Price and availability |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghost of Yōtei | PlayStation 5 | October 2, 2025 | Standard, Digital Deluxe and Collector’s Editions listed by Sony. | Not stated in the cited material; verify current regional pricing and stock. |
| The Last of Us Part I | PlayStation 5 and PC, as listed by PlayStation. | September 2, 2022 | PlayStation lists a Standard Edition that includes the Left Behind prequel chapter. | Not stated in the cited material; verify current regional pricing and PC availability. |
These are release contexts, not permanent guarantees of storefront stock. Digital listings, physical inventory, regional editions and prices can change. If you are buying after the launch windows, check the current PlayStation or PC product listing for your region before paying.
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Which game should you choose?
Choose Ghost of Yōtei if you want
- An expansive wilderness where curiosity and sightlines help determine your next destination.
- A new protagonist and a standalone story set in 1603 Ezo.
- A revenge motive that the official framing connects to healing and redemption.
- Flexible weapon combat paired with freedom to explore.
- A slower, self-directed travel rhythm in which the landscape is part of the narrative experience.
Choose The Last of Us Part I if you want
- A tightly focused Joel-and-Ellie story beginning with a smuggling job.
- A cross-country survival journey through a ravaged civilization rather than an officially labeled open world.
- Environmental storytelling that reveals the history and danger of each place you pass through.
- Remake improvements to controls, accessibility, exploration and combat.
- A controlled progression in which suspense and the companion relationship set the pace.
If you value both exploration and story
The choice comes down to where you want freedom to operate. Yōtei gives more of that freedom at the level of travel and world discovery. Part I gives you a more directed route while concentrating its flexibility inside encounters and explorable spaces. Neither sacrifices story; they attach story to different forms of movement.
What the developers say about their goals
Sucker Punch co-founder and studio head Brian Fleming describes Yōtei as “a story of healing and redemption that runs deeper than vengeance, told through the eyes of a new hero set in the breathtaking edge of Japan.” That statement explains why the revenge premise should not be treated as the whole arc.
For Part I, Naughty Dog game director Matthew Gallant said: “If you’re a returning player, I hope you find new depths of emotion and humanity in the storytelling and experience new tension and intensity in the improved gameplay and combat.” His comment describes the remake’s intended gains for returning players. It is not an independent ranking against Yōtei, and it does not change Part I’s directed, companion-centered structure.
The practical verdict
Ghost of Yōtei is the stronger match for players who want the world itself to suggest possibilities and who enjoy choosing their own path through a historical wilderness. The Last of Us Part I is the stronger match for players who want a carefully paced survival journey in which exploration, combat and environmental detail continually reinforce Joel and Ellie’s relationship. Their stories differ just as clearly: Atsu begins with revenge and is framed on a path toward healing, while Joel’s assignment to escort Ellie becomes the emotional center of a dangerous cross-country passage.
Quick Recap
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