Ghost of Yōtei launched on October 2, 2025 to critical acclaim, but it had a secret Sucker Punch Productions never advertised. The game features advanced ray tracing technology that wasn’t mentioned in any pre-release marketing, trailers, or developer interviews. When reviewers and players booted up the game, they discovered ray-traced global illumination running beautifully on PlayStation 5, with even better performance on PS5 Pro. Now in a detailed technical breakdown with Digital Foundry and through the official PlayStation blog, Sucker Punch has explained why they kept this feature quiet and how they made it work.
The surprise was genuine. Any online search pairing Ghost of Yōtei with ray tracing before launch would have come up empty. Digital Foundry’s John Linneman noted in his review that he immediately noticed something special about the lighting when he first played review code, but the ray tracing option was just quietly sitting there in the graphics menu waiting to be discovered. No fanfare, no marketing push, just a cutting-edge visual feature that most studios would plaster across every piece of promotional material.
What the Ray Tracing Actually Does
Ghost of Yōtei’s ray tracing implementation focuses on global illumination rather than reflections. Since the game takes place in the wilderness of 17th century Hokkaido, there aren’t many mirror-like surfaces that would benefit from ray-traced reflections. Instead, Sucker Punch used the technology to improve the fidelity of how light bounces and interacts with the environment.
According to the PlayStation blog tech deep dive published on October 23, the team attacked global illumination from two directions. First, they created a more automated, improved baked lighting model. Then they augmented that with short-range ray-traced global illumination that adds an additional pass of lighting to the scenery, allowing for proper, precise bounce lighting with realistic indirect illumination.
What this means in practice is that light behaves more naturally throughout the game world. When sunlight hits a grassy field, the light bounces off the grass and illuminates nearby objects with subtle green tints. When you’re inside a building with light streaming through windows, that light accurately bounces around the interior spaces. It’s the kind of lighting detail that most players won’t consciously notice, but it makes the world feel more believable and alive.
The Technical Challenge
Implementing ray tracing required significant changes to Sucker Punch’s engine. The team had to modify their mesh streaming format to dynamically decompress the acceleration structures used by the ray tracing hardware. This was essential for maintaining performance in an open-world game where massive amounts of geometry need to be streamed in and out as players explore.
The PlayStation 5’s ray tracing capabilities are more limited than high-end PC graphics cards, which is why many PS5 games either skip ray tracing entirely or use it very sparingly. Sucker Punch made it work by keeping the ray tracing range relatively short and by relying on their improved baked lighting to handle longer-range illumination. The hybrid approach balances visual quality with performance.
On PS5 Pro, the game benefits from the console’s more efficient ray tracing hardware. This allows players to enable ray-traced global illumination while targeting 60 frames per second, which is a significant achievement for an open-world game of this scale. Base PS5 users can still enable ray tracing, but it locks the game to 30fps in the Fidelity mode.
Graphics Modes Breakdown
Ghost of Yōtei offers multiple graphics modes to accommodate different player preferences. On base PlayStation 5, players can choose between Performance mode running at 60fps without ray tracing, or Fidelity mode running at 30fps with ray-traced global illumination and higher resolution.
PS5 Pro owners get the best of both worlds. The console can run at 60fps with ray tracing enabled, thanks to the Pro’s improved GPU and more efficient RT hardware. Digital Foundry’s performance tests showed the game maintaining a rock-solid 60fps in Performance RT mode on PS5 Pro, with resolution hovering near 4K thanks to PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution upscaling.
PSSR was another major technical investment for Sucker Punch. The team specifically mentioned they wanted to push in directions that would help with future games, and adopting Sony’s new AI upscaling technology positions them well for whatever comes next. The results speak for themselves, with excellent image quality and stability even when rendering complex scenes with massive amounts of foliage and sub-pixel detail.
Why Keep It Secret
So why didn’t Sucker Punch promote the ray tracing features before launch? The studio hasn’t explicitly stated their reasoning, but there are several logical explanations. First, they may have wanted to avoid setting expectations they weren’t certain they could meet. Ray tracing implementation can be tricky, and if they encountered last-minute performance issues, they’d have to either cut the feature or delay the game.
Second, Sucker Punch might have wanted the technology to speak for itself. Rather than hyping a feature that most players don’t fully understand, they let reviewers and players discover it organically. When Digital Foundry praised the implementation in their review, it carried more weight than any marketing claim could have.
Third, Ghost of Yōtei didn’t need ray tracing as a selling point. The game was going to sell based on being the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, one of PlayStation’s most beloved exclusives. Adding ray tracing was about delivering the best possible experience rather than checking a box for marketing purposes.
Other Technical Improvements
Ray tracing isn’t the only technical advancement in Ghost of Yōtei. Sucker Punch’s tech deep dive revealed numerous improvements to their cloth simulation system, particle effects, and character rendering. The new layering support allows Atsu’s complex costumes to move realistically with multiple layers of simulated cloth that collide with each other and the environment.
GPU particles sample terrain material, deformation, and water flow to create more believable environmental interactions. When you walk through mud, kick up dust, or get caught in rain, the particle systems react appropriately. Characters also accumulate dirt, blood, and snow based on their actions and the environment, anchoring them more believably in the world.
The game’s time-swapping mechanic, which lets players explore Atsu’s family history, leverages the PS5’s SSD speed to instantly change character models, geometry, lighting, and background elements behind a curtain of particles. It’s a clever use of the console’s I/O capabilities that wouldn’t have been possible on previous generation hardware.
Critical and Commercial Success
Ghost of Yōtei’s technical excellence contributed to overwhelmingly positive reviews. The game earned widespread acclaim from critics, with many calling it Sucker Punch’s best work to date. Push Square’s readers voted it Game of the Month for October 2025 in a landslide, with Ghost of Yōtei receiving more than seven times the votes of its closest rival.
Digital Foundry specifically praised the ray tracing implementation, with John Linneman calling it a welcome surprise and noting that the results are excellent on both base and Pro PlayStation 5 consoles. The HDR implementation also received high marks, with Linneman describing it as beautiful and noting how the game takes full advantage of modern display technology.
Pre-orders had already placed Ghost of Yōtei at number one in thirteen countries before launch, suggesting strong commercial performance. The combination of stellar reviews, impressive technical features, and the Ghost of Tsushima legacy created the perfect storm for a blockbuster PlayStation exclusive.
FAQs
Does Ghost of Yōtei have ray tracing?
Yes, Ghost of Yōtei features ray-traced global illumination that improves how light bounces and interacts with the environment. This feature was never mentioned in pre-release marketing and surprised reviewers when they discovered it in the graphics menu.
Can you play Ghost of Yōtei at 60fps with ray tracing?
On PlayStation 5 Pro, yes. The Pro console can run Ghost of Yōtei at 60fps with ray tracing enabled thanks to its more efficient RT hardware. On base PS5, ray tracing is only available in Fidelity mode which runs at 30fps.
When did Ghost of Yōtei release?
Ghost of Yōtei launched worldwide on October 2, 2025 exclusively for PlayStation 5. The game is available in Standard, Digital Deluxe, and Collector’s Editions.
Why didn’t Sucker Punch advertise the ray tracing before launch?
Sucker Punch hasn’t explicitly explained why they kept the ray tracing quiet, but likely reasons include avoiding setting expectations they weren’t certain they could meet, letting the technology speak for itself through reviews, and not needing it as a marketing point given the game’s strong pedigree.
What does PSSR do in Ghost of Yōtei?
PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution is Sony’s AI upscaling technology that allows Ghost of Yōtei to maintain excellent image quality while rendering at lower native resolutions. This helps the game achieve 60fps on PS5 Pro while appearing to run near 4K resolution.
Is Ghost of Yōtei coming to PC?
There has been no official announcement about a PC version. Sony typically releases PlayStation exclusives on PC eventually, but Ghost of Tsushima took several years to arrive on PC, so any potential port is likely years away.
How does Ghost of Yōtei perform on base PS5?
On base PS5, the game runs at 60fps in Performance mode without ray tracing, or 30fps in Fidelity mode with ray-traced global illumination. Both modes maintain stable frame rates according to Digital Foundry’s analysis.
What other technical features does Ghost of Yōtei have?
Beyond ray tracing, the game features advanced cloth simulation with multi-layer support, improved particle systems that interact with the environment, dynamic character weathering that accumulates dirt and blood, time-swapping mechanics using the PS5 SSD, and beautiful HDR implementation.
Conclusion
Sucker Punch’s decision to quietly implement advanced ray tracing in Ghost of Yōtei without pre-release fanfare speaks to their confidence in the technology and their commitment to quality over marketing hype. The surprise reveal generated genuine excitement among tech enthusiasts and reviewers who discovered the feature organically, creating more authentic praise than any promotional campaign could manufacture. By leveraging PS5 and especially PS5 Pro’s capabilities to deliver ray-traced global illumination at playable frame rates in a massive open world game, Sucker Punch has set a new technical benchmark for PlayStation exclusives. Whether intentional or not, keeping the ray tracing secret until launch became one of the best marketing moves the studio never planned, generating buzz and goodwill precisely when it matters most at release.