Hot on the heels of Ghost of Yotei’s very own State of Play showcase, we sat down for a chat with creative directors Nate Fox and Jason Connell to talk about what we saw of Sucker Punch’s upcoming PlayStation 5 exclusive — and what we were left wondering about. Read on for answers!IGN: The backdrop of Ghost of Tsushima was a real-life invasion by Mongol forces on the island of Tsushima. With Ghost of Yotei, what's the historical setting of what's going on in Japan at this time and how will that play into Atsu’s journey?Nate Fox: The game takes place in the year 1603. Peace has just broken out in Japan after decades and decades of civil war and there are a lot of sellswords that suddenly are out of work. So they travel north to the edge of the Japanese empire, an island called Ezo, modern day Hokkaido. And this place becomes a powder keg. It's very, very dangerous with all these sellswords walking around trying to make a buck. This moment in history combined with the beauty of Ezo, these lush mountainscapes and forests and rivers, creates a dynamite combination for an open world game, and it's where we wanted to set Atsu’s quest for vengeance.IGN: During your presentation at the State of Play, you mentioned that Ghost of Yotei focuses on more freedom than any game Sucker Punch has ever made. That's a large claim considering the amount of freedom that was already offered in Ghost of Tsushima, I can definitely attest to that. Can you elaborate on some of the ways in which you've enhanced the feeling of freedom compared to what the player could already do in Ghost of Tsushima?Jason Connell: When we started to think about what the next game would be for us at Sucker Punch, we really had to take stock of what we loved and what our fans really loved, and how we saw people play Ghost of Tsushima. And one of the aspects of Tsushima that we wanted to carry forward was the sense of exploration. We saw people play very wide in their experience. We saw some people drop 80, 90 hours and just exploring and using modes like photo mode just to soak in the nature and the beauty of the world.That really resonated with us. We're big wide players as well, so when we set out to make Yotei, especially once we decided that it was going to take place in Hokkaido — back then it was called Ezo, this vast, vast landscape that just frankly had a nice overlap with us having a desire to have a more open game design because it's such a vast place — led us to a whole host of features, ranging from simple utility features like spyglass, being able to pull your spyglass up really quickly and look around the environment really is the way that I think Nate and I both really love to play, just see something on the horizon and go to it, to traversal features. We have flower streams that are just woven into the environment and help you get across vast landscapes. If you follow those flowers you'll get a little bit of a speed boost because they're joyful for Atsu to ride in, but they also might lead you to something. Or developing features like our clue system, or camping features, which just really celebrate the wilds of Ezo.IGN: One of the coolest moments at the State of Play was the seamless switch from present day to Atsu’s past when she was looking around the remnants of her childhood home, and then you actually saw her reliving those memories in the past with just the press of a button. I wondered where this idea came from, and is it the kind of thing where it'll be tied to specific spots throughout the game world, so there'll be an area where it's clearly time to switch back to the past? Or is it up to the player to discover those for themselves?Nate Fox: In Ghost of Yotei there are a number of places in the world that Atsu visits in which she has a lot of memories from her youth. And at the touch of a button, you can go back into the past and you control Atsu as a child, you get to play as her interacting with her brother and her parents and other people in Ezo.We wanted you to be able to really control her as a kid so that you would feel like you knew what her life was like, you could experience that, and of course because this shows you what she lost. It’s a feature we really love because the player is in command, they can hit the button to go back and see what it used to be like and then hit it again and see what it's like now, comparing and contrasting for instance, what her own homestead looked like in her youth to what it looks like now after it's been run down by weather and lack of use, it's become a ruin. So you get to see the before and after of her experience in the landscape.IGN: So was it from day-one work on the sequel? Did you know that you were starting fresh with a brand new character, or were there ever some initial ideas for maybe continuing Jin’s story on after the events of Ghost of Tsushima?Jason Connell: For us at Sucker Punch, one of the things that, especially if you look back on our catalog of games, we have a deep love for making origin stories. It's something we have a lot of passion for. We like coming up with those stories, those arcs, the characterizations, how they might come through in the game experience, what type of features it might sort of spark as we create this new character. And so really from the beginning we knew that we were going to be charting on new territory here.And then once we pretty quickly started looking at Hokkaido and this region and this time period and just how vast and stunning and big and filled with wilderness, and you combine that with this idea of doing a tale of vengeance where Atsu is hunting someone inside of that landscape, it was just such a great match.It's not hunting for somebody in a safe environment. This is a massive landscape that she'll be going under quite an undertaking hunting them here. We felt like that was an exciting connection. I'll say also the story of the folk legend of the onryō, this Japanese folk legend of tale of vengeance, often women who've been wronged in life and now they've come back to seek vengeance, we got really excited about that folk legend and decided that we were going to inject that pretty heavily into our version of a Ghost story.IGN: One of the other new features involving campfires you mentioned was a system that allowed members of your wolf pack to visit you at night. You sort of hinted that you don't have to leave where you're exploring, the game comes to you. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?Jason Connell: First and foremost any feature that makes it into the game has to be tonally celebrating the land of Ezo. And as I mentioned earlier, this vast landscape, there's nothing better than celebrating the camping aspects of it. That is something we felt was really important.Now secondly, I must say we're always looking for ways to make the game feel approachable. And I mentioned it a little bit in the State of Play, is that, open world in big games, managing resources is kind of challenging. In our game you can fast travel. In our last game, you could fast travel anywhere. If you want to go upgrade your bow, you could fast travel over here and upgrade your bow, that's fine and you can do that again in this game.But after you meet people and your wolf pack grows, we show this screen briefly, you can go into those wolf pack screens and see what people have to offer for you. Say you like that bow here, if they have an upgrade available to you, you might be able to pull them into your campsite. So if you're exploring a region of the game, it sometimes can be really discordant to just like stop there, go warp to another area, upgrade, and then come back to where you're exploring. This is what we mean. You can actually just stay here, set up camp, briefly engage with this person, this bow, your person comes over, you get your upgrade and then you go back on your way all while celebrating the wilds of Ezo. And that's where camping has been an iteration and evolution of the Ghost game.IGN: Ghost of Tsushima Legends was objectively awesome. How happy were you with that mode as a team and is there a possibility to see something like it again for Ghost of Yotei, either at launch or maybe in the far off distant future?Nate Fox: We were extremely happy with Ghost of Tsushima Legends and allowing players to connect with friends and use their skills fighting with the katana against a variety of enemies. We loved it. Right now we are very focused on completing Ghost of Yotei to the highest quality possible and putting it in players' hands very soon on October 2. That is our absolute focus right now.IGN: Masterfully answered! What has it been like developing combat based around a whole arsenal of weapons this time as opposed to just a katana and the variety of different stances?Nate Fox: In Tsushima, we really loved our stance system where the player could choose one of four ways to hold the weapon to combat a particular type of enemy. In Ghost of Yotei we took that system and we expanded it. Instead of four stances, there are now five. Instead of stances with one weapon, we took that same system and we said, okay, instead of stances it's new melee weapons. Functionally it's the same as stances but it's more. For instance, if you use a spear, you can use that weapon to knock enemies backwards in space. So if you're standing near a cliff fighting them, you can knock them off the cliff into the abyss. Works just like stances, but there are extra abilities attached to each of these weapons to give the player more options.IGN: So should the player be expecting to juggle weapons and learn which is going to work against which type of enemy, perhaps what weapon they're using? Or is it more a case of unlocking the right skills for the right weapons?Nate Fox: The game definitely would like players best to learn how to switch weapons when it is appropriate. It is the most efficient way to play. Let's face it, people sometimes want to play in the way that makes them feel the coolest and the game will not hurt you if you do that. If you want to play with just two swords in each hand because it looks cool, you can play through the whole game that way. It's A-okay.IGN: Can you mention any of your favorite skills that you're able to unlock or moves you're able to do with any of the weapons?Nate Fox: I love the kusarigama because while it's really good for taking down people with shields, it also allows you to do an area of effect attack by spinning that chain above your head. If you're surrounded by enemies, you can hit them all. This is something we never had in Tsushima, but in Yotei it's absolutely there for you. It is a moment where you're kind of improvising, and these weapons allow you to do a broader selection of abilities that give you more choice and more freedom in how you deal tactically with the enemies around you.IGN: Jason, do you have one as well?Jason Connell: I think my favorite when it comes to combat is the dual wielding. It really rewards the feeling of being really fast, and when she hits with those two swords you can kind of get into a flurry and get into a groove where it just keeps going. You're like, this is going to stop, but it just keeps going. There's speed there, it feels really lethal. It doesn't feel like you're swinging a lot and doing little damage. It feels like you're actually really hurting them. I like dual wielding... that’s my fantasy melee weapon set up for me. That might be different for other people, but that's why there's five of 'em. Everybody's going to try something new and different.IGN: So Jason, in a New York Times interview, you mentioned that you were left in awe by the sight of Mount Yotei reflected across Lake Tōya during a research trip. Was that the site that inspired the setting of Ghost of Yotei, or were there ever any other locations or historical settings that could have perhaps been the home for Atsu?Jason Connell: By the time we had gone on the research trip, we definitely knew that we were making a game up there. We had seen enough images. We had embraced the idea that this is where our game was going to take place, and it was about just getting immersed in the culture up there because it's quite different than Honshu mainland Japan. A number of us, it was our first time.So really opening the door to all of the unknowns that we could take home and be inspired by and develop new relationships for new advisors. That's the real reason to go. But that Lake Tōya moment where — and I bet Nate had a very similar experience — certainly was some of the birthplaces of thinking about what the actual name of the game would be, because it was just such a majestic moment where the mountain is sort of towering over you. It was a nice middle point of the trip for us, and really symbolized a lot of what we learned and felt while we were there.And then there were a bunch of natural decisions and some implicit decisions that were made over the course of the game that suddenly, our home is at the foot of Mount Yōtei, this massive mountain that’s casting this shadow over and we were naming things based off of it. It really felt like it was the geographical heart of the experience, and the story was spiraling out from there. It felt like just a great moment for us as we were getting towards the early parts of making the game, and it ended up transforming into the actual name.IGN: And I know this is going to be hard, but Nate, starting with you, I'd love to know one thing you're super excited for players to be able to see and play with when the game comes out in October?Nate Fox: Oh, I'm very excited for players to get out into the wilds, the dangerous lawless wilds of Ezo and hopefully they're really entranced by Atu’s quest. The wind's blowing them towards a mission start, but what's that over there? They see something on the horizon that stokes their curiosity and they say, you know what? I'm going to go check it out. And they ride to that thing and they're going to find something worth discovering, whether it's a story or some piece of valuable treasure, you name it. We wanted to make sure in this game that we honored players' curiosity, that we would reward exploration. And to me that's the magic of Yotei. It's those spaces in between missions when players just find themselves propelled by the smallest little puff of curiosity and it takes them on an adventure they hadn't anticipated doing.IGN: What I'm hearing from that is I'm going to be having a lot of late nights, way later than intended. Jason?Jason Connell: I actually want to say something we haven't talked about much, which is Atsu’s shamisen, which is the instrument that she carries, which is her mother’s shamisen. Just like in Ghost of Tsushima, we had features in that game, I think it was called the Traveler's Attire in the last game… it would help you find content nearby, you could use it almost like a completion tool or a navigation tool in order to get through the world.I love that the shamisen exists and there's actually songs that you can learn inside of the open world, and those songs can then guide you to certain types of things. So you want to collect some of these songs because they'll guide you. The Song of Vanity might guide you to cosmetics, and we know how people love dressing up in the game and putting on cool outfits. So I'm really excited about showing more of that and for players to get an opportunity to use that.Interview conducted by Rachel Weber.Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.