Quick one: Ghost of Yotei is out now, and it does the one thing Assassin's Creed: Shadows tried to work around but never really solved. It lets you live out both sides of the fantasy — samurai and shinobi — without being bounced between characters. Simple idea, big difference.
The blueprint was already there
Ghost of Tsushima pretty much set the standard for stealth-action in historical Japan. It proved you can weave samurai honor and ninja pragmatism into one playable experience and have it feel natural. Sucker Punch saw the formula work and doubled down on it, keeping their Japan-set series moving instead of reinventing the wheel just to be cute.
Where Assassin's Creed: Shadows stumbled
When Ubisoft finally took Assassin's Creed to Japan, fans were thrilled — for about five minutes. Then the split became clear: Naoe handles the sneaking, Yasuke is the walking tank. On paper, that division sounds tidy. In practice, it felt jarring and, frankly, tedious. Ghost of Tsushima had already shown you can merge both playstyles inside a single character and keep the fantasy intact. Shadows forcing you to pick a lane every time undercut the fun.
What Ghost of Yotei actually does
Ghost of Yotei leans into that all-in-one approach again. You play as Atsu — not technically a samurai by title — but her swordwork and stance shifts absolutely read as one. The stealth tools and blade-to-blade combat live in the same toolkit, so there is no swapping characters or breaking momentum. You choose how to enter a level, how messy or surgical to get, and the game rolls with it.
- Ghost of Tsushima: One lead who fluidly blends stealth and samurai swordplay.
- Assassin's Creed: Shadows: Two-protagonist split — Naoe for stealth, Yasuke for bruiser combat. Sounds smart, plays fussy.
- Ghost of Yotei: Back to the unified build — Atsu carries both samurai-style fighting and shinobi tactics without character switching.
Is the praise just bias? Short answer: no
Ghost of Yotei is getting a lot of love, but it is not just the internet playing favorites. Ghost of Tsushima earned Sucker Punch the runway to keep experimenting with historical stealth-action, and they used it. Fans spent years asking Ubisoft to set Assassin's Creed in Japan; when it finally happened, Tsushima had already delivered a killer story and a cohesive gameplay model in that space. That momentum mattered.
So when Yotei landed, it benefited from the fan base Tsushima built, sure — but it also brings clear gameplay refinements over the first outing. The spotlight feels earned because the game actually improves on the approach that worked in the first place.
Bottom line
Blending samurai and shinobi in one character is the special sauce. Ghost of Yotei sticks to that and thrives. Assassin's Creed: Shadows split the fantasy in half, and the seams showed.
Think Shadows could have hit harder if it followed the Tsushima playbook? Drop your take in the comments.