🔗 Share this article

Sony fans and opponents rarely agree.

But one particular grievance which has been expressed by everyone.

"Why are there so few games?"

Expensive, story-driven major releases from in-house developers have traditionally been the foundation to PlayStation's gaming success.

Throughout the PS4 period, players received a consistent flow of story-rich experiences, but that has felt more like a trickle since 2023's Spider-Man 2.

But, PlayStation's newest title – Ghost of Yōtei – marks a reversion to its proven premium style.

The Reason for So Long?

The studio's recent game is a sequel to the 2020 samurai-era adventure Ghost of Tsushima, which was the last high-profile PlayStation-only games from Sony.

"Games require a significant period to make, so it's no small portion of your time," notes Nate.

Ghost of Yōtei transfers the story a hundreds of miles northward, to the island of Honshū location, and the era a several centuries later, to 1603.

In this installment, the narrative follows the protagonist Atsu, a female warrior on a quest to obtain retribution against the group of six – a group of warlords responsible for her family's death.

With a earlier release to expand upon, it's far from a totally new foundation but, Fox clarifies, the game is nonetheless a enormous challenge.

Just having a fresh main character, for case, requires input from scriptwriters, character animators and design artists, to cite a handful of the positions involved.

Backstage there are many, many more team members.

An Enormous Team Undertaking

Even though the developer has roughly 200 staff at its base near Seattle, many hundreds are involved in its projects.

The credits for Ghost of Tsushima, for example, contained approximately eighteen hundred names.

Several of them will be from overseas, or from third-party companies that excel in certain advanced disciplines.

"Creating a title calls for a wide range of diverse talents, from highly technical experts... to individuals who are highly driven by narrative, like our writers," comments the director.

"And the various departments operate in harmony. It's similar to conducting an ensemble.

"We need to have every elements working in unison."

Fox states that a staggering number of elements can go into a one sequence – from music to the programming that causes leaves drift across the environment at a crucial moment.

"All these teams must have a understanding of the end goal," adds Nate.

An Adjustment in Direction

A sense of direction is something players have accused Sony of lacking in recent times.

Under its previous leader, the ex-executive, the company initiated work on 12 live-service projects, called "continuous" games in the gaming sector.

Some of the top games, such as the popular shooter, Roblox and Call of Duty, keep users engaged for extended durations and produce massive amounts of money.

Sony has had success in the area with last year's Helldivers II, but a unsuccessful disappointment with another game, which was shut down just a fortnight after its debut.

It has subsequently cancelled live-service games based on some of its best-known franchises, such as God of War and The Last of Us.

Chasing the online market is a plan PlayStation has admitted is not completely "going smoothly", but it's said some titles with connected features, such as Gran Turismo and baseball title MLB: The Show, have performed well.

The main attractions of its latest marketing stream were Saros, a successor to 2021's Returnal, and the highly anticipated Marvel's Wolverine game from Spider-Man studio Insomniac – both story-driven experiences.

Discussion and Attention

Big games can frequently be magnets for controversy, as the developer recently experienced when a employee's joke about the passing of conservative activist activist the individual prompted a backlash.

The company ultimately dismissed the individual involved, and head Brian Fleming said that "glorifying or joking about an individual's killing is a deal-breaker for the company", when questioned about it.

Some conservative entertainment personalities have furthermore criticized Ghost of Yōtei for featuring a woman hero.

Fox says it was an "unusual decision", but crucial to the tale the creators wanted to tell of an unlikely hero challenging traditional expectations.

When the adventure progresses, Atsu's reputation as an supernatural being – a revenge-seeking spirit seen in Japan's tradition – increases.

"Players assume it can't be a woman would have eliminated figures of the the group except if she is a supernatural {creature|