Ghost of Yōtei developer Sucker Punch Productions has reportedly laid off 24 people on its staff.
It’s another case of a studio that made an award-winning game — my favorite title of 2025 — and then suffered layoffs after the fact. Aftermath reported the news.
Seattle-based Sucker Punch reported had about 200 employees, but it’s not clear exactly what percentage of the staff was let go, Aftermath said.
“After carefully observing the challenges in the market and reviewing the team needs for our next project, we’ve decided to make some staffing reductions,” the PlayStation studio said in a video sent to staff. “We know this is a lot to take in, and we want to assure you that we did not make this decision lightly. We have given this a lot of attention and worked to support our affected colleagues during this transition as well as we can. … There’s no getting around that this is a hard day. Next week we will go into more details about the future.”
Ghost of Yōtei came out in October 2025 and it earned an 86 score on Metacritic. The game took big awards at last year’s DICE Summit, including Adventure Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Character, and Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition. Roughly 5.4 million copies were sold in the first year.
Sucker Punch also made the outstanding Ghost of Tsushima title that debuted in 2020.
Here’s what I wrote about Ghost of Yotei in my favorite games of 2025 DeanBeat column.
1) Ghost of Yotei
Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms: PlayStation 5
I chose this one for its story, and it’s why I gave this game five out of five stars. It’s a simple tale about revenge that a woman undertakes after she’s been working as a mercenary for 16 years. As a young girl, Atsu had to endure the horror of the murder of her family, who were slaughtered by the Yotei Six next to the old tree at her home in the Yotei region in the far north of Japan.
Ghost of Yotei is a wonderful experience, full of memorable moments, classic samurai duels and big battles, and some amazing visual effects that outdo the original.
There are a half-dozen villains to track down in the revenge journey. But each one is different and the faction of the criminal gang leaders must be taken down before you get a chance at taking out a big one. The story follows the haunted, lone mercenary Atsu as she seeks revenge against the Yotei Six amid the beautiful, rugged landscapes of northern Japan. Yet this is more than just a revenge fantasy.
The villains have only gotten stronger while Atsu was away, and they are cocky and well protected. But Atsu has her samurai blade, a spear and her bow as allies in the revenge tale. Some of those she hunts are pathetic characters, and some are unremorseful and pure evil. The villains’ reactions to being hunted down and slaughtered are so varied, from indignation to fatalism. Each tale is so well written, and the range of emotions that Atsu endures adds to her moral dilemma, as she has to choose between family and vengeance.
The combat is ferocious, and I had to fight some battles over and over. Yet I rarely had to leave a fight and build myself back up before going back to the same battle. The balance between stealth and open battle was well executed, and neither gives Atsu an edge. She always has to fight for her life.
It’s a wonderful feeling when you finally bring down a boss out against the odds. Yet the game is more forgiving in the fights than Souls games, where one bad move can make you lose a fight and restart.
And while this is an open world, it’s not so much like a checklist map game. You can play without opening a map at all, but you always know where to go for your next mission in the revenge tale. By comparison, revenge stories like Assassin’s Creed: Shadows and Ghost of Tsushima fell short because there was always too large a gap between the main story missions. I got fed up with Shadows after I had to postpone my revenge mission to set up my household. The side missions piled up in Tsushima and sidetracked you too much. Not so with Yotei, and you can hide from the authorities as needed. Erika Ishii’s great voice acting adds to the gravity of Atsu’s journey. All of these elements come together to make a great story.