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PS5 fans and detractors seldom agree.

Yet there's one issue that has been voiced by all parties.

"Why are there so few games?"

Big-budget, story-driven hits from first-party developers have long been the foundation to the company's gaming popularity.

In the PlayStation 4 era, players received a regular supply of narrative-driven experiences, but this has felt more like a drip since the release of Spider-Man 2.

Yet, Sony's most recent title – Ghost of Yōtei – signals a comeback to its established blockbuster format.

What Took So Long?

Sucker Punch's latest offering is a successor to the earlier feudal Japan-set adventure Ghost of Tsushima, among the last major PlayStation-only games from Sony.

"Titles require a significant period to create, so it's a major chunk of your time," explains Fox.

Ghost of Yōtei moves the action a several hundred miles northward, to the Honshū area, and the era a several centuries afterward, to 1603.

In this installment, the story revolves around a character named Atsu, a woman fighter on a mission to exact vengeance against the Yōtei Six – a group of warlords accountable for her clan's demise.

With a previous game to expand upon, it's far from a totally new beginning but, the director explains, the project is still a huge effort.

Simply creating a new protagonist, for example, needs input from authors, animation artists and design artists, to name just a few of the roles participating.

Behind the scenes there are numerous additional specialists.

A Vast Team Undertaking

Although the studio has approximately 200 employees at its studio near Seattle, many hundreds are involved in its games.

The list of contributors for Ghost of Tsushima, for case, included around eighteen hundred names.

Several of those were from overseas, or from third-party firms that focus in certain specialized fields.

"Developing a game calls for all sorts of different talents, from incredibly technical people... to people who are extremely driven by narrative, like our story team," explains Nate.

"Plus all these groups operate in harmony. It's like leading an ensemble.

"You must have every pieces working in unison."

Fox notes that a staggering variety of components can contribute to a one scene – from soundtrack to the programming that makes particles blow over the environment at a pivotal moment.

"Every department need to have a understanding of the end goal," says Fox.

An Adjustment in Direction

A sense of direction is something the community have criticized Sony of lacking in recent years.

During its former leader, the ex-executive, the branch launched work on 12 multiplayer projects, known as "live-service" experiences in the gaming sector.

Several of the top games, such as the popular shooter, the sandbox platform and the military shooter, retain fans engaged for months and generate massive amounts of revenue.

PlayStation has had success in the space with last year's Helldivers II, but a catastrophic disappointment with a certain title, which was discontinued merely 14 days after its launch.

It has afterward cancelled live-service projects based on some of its most popular franchises, including God of War and The Last of Us.

Targeting the multiplayer market is a strategy PlayStation has admitted is not wholly "progressing well", but it's explained some games with multiplayer features, such as the driving simulator and baseball simulation MLB: The Show, have done nicely.

The stars of its most recent showcase stream were Saros, a successor to 2021's Returnal, and the eagerly awaited the mutant hero adventure from superhero studio Insomniac – each single-player titles.

Discussion and Scrutiny

Big games can often be magnets for debate, as Sucker Punch just experienced when a developer's joke about the passing of political US activist Charlie Kirk triggered a reaction.

The studio finally let go the employee involved, and co-founder a senior figure stated that "celebrating or joking about a person's killing is a red line for the team", when interviewed about it.

Certain conservative video game commentators have furthermore criticized Ghost of Yōtei for starring a female protagonist.

The director notes it was an "atypical choice", but key to the narrative the team set out to tell of an outsider defying society's conventions.

While the game progresses, Atsu's reputation as an supernatural being – a revenge-seeking spirit found in Japan's tradition – increases.

"People believe it's impossible a woman might have defeated individuals of the Yōtei Six except if she is a otherworldly {creature|