Ghost Of Yotei: Accessibility Review

Disclaimer

The copy of the game used for this review was provided by the publisher at no cost to the reviewer.

Introduction

Ghost Of Tsushima, which I previously reviewed for its PS4 release, was critically acclaimed by many and has now become one of PlayStation’s iconic titles, even if it wasn’t playable without constant sighted assistance in its original version, at least in my experience.

With the director’s cut releasing later on PC and PlayStation 5, others had success via the DualSense, with the game’s “guiding wind” feature having been upgraded to utilise that controller’s improved haptic capabilities, though stories I’ve heard from players included usage of a trainer to get through some sections as well.

Now, 5 years on and thanks to a review code provided by PlayStation, let’s see if we can answer a question that’s probably on at least some of your minds if you’re reading this: Just how accessible is this new standalone sequel to one of Sony’s more recently acclaimed IPs as a gamer without sight?

First Boot

On launching the game, a haptic fuelled Sony studios and Sucker Punch Productions combination logo greets you, after which you are then asked to “ADJUST BRIGHTNESS UNTIL THE WOLF’S EYES ARE BARELY VISIBLE”, at least according to Optical Character Recognition (OCR). If you see other capitalised elements of text such as the above, that’s how said writing was rendered after being copied from the screenshot of the game in question.

After selecting the default value for brightness, you are then thrown into the difficulty selection, starting on Medium, again with no menu narration of any kind to be seen, though there is some solid ambience here.

This left/right menu unfortunately wraps, though custom difficulty appears to be available at the start, which is appreciated.

I selected casual to see where things would take me next, though conscious that I had still been unable to adjust any further settings.

After selecting difficulty, much like the original Tsushima set, you are then tasked with selecting what the game calls an “experience”. Interestingly, the game puts you on English dialogue with no subtitles by default, instead of having the subtitles be on by default for example as you might see in other games. This is unfortunate as people could miss the fact that having subtitles on from the start is an option if they’re just selecting the initial settings.

Again, much like this game’s predecessor, a “Kurosawa mode” (which emulates the look of iconic black and white samurai movies with accompanying audio filters and Japanese dialogue) is present, though I didn’t select this as I wanted to be able to understand the dialogue on my initial look at the game.

Selecting subtitled as my experience, with yet another burst of haptics to accompany the very audible UI (both of which are much appreciated), we are thrust unceremoniously into the first cutscene.

Whilst you can pause this, sadly you only seemingly have the ability to change the on/off state of subtitles and nothing else using triangle. I hope this is improved in future updates, as being able to customise accessibility settings before you get into the game can be essential, particularly when elements that would be useful to have on from the beginning like menu narration or aim assist are present.

Once the dramatic introductory opening cutscene finishes, we are advised to “write their names”. Of course given there is no narration able to be turned on by default before this, OCR does not read what must be used, leading to either guesswork or a trip to the now accessible options menu to see if things can improve.

The Options Menu

The options menu does have an accessibility section, which is great to see, though sadly once again no menu narration is present and most of the options relate to visual enhancements such as making incoming attacks easier to detect via increased glint levels.

There is, however, one setting that could be of use to gamers without sight in addition to being able to auto target enemies with aimed attacks and that is the ability to have the guiding wind feature turn the camera towards your objective.

This wasn’t present in the first game and was why it could be such a hit and miss experience for players trying to brute force their way through the title, including through the use of trainers, as all that could be relied on was the directionality of audio and haptic feedback, making for tedious treks rather than fluid journeys.

Having attempted to adjust those few settings I felt might be useful, I resolved to try and get through what I could.

The Game Itself

It turns out that you have to write the names of your enemies using the touch pad, though it was unclear to me as to whether the sequence of inputs was random or not.

After writing several more scribbles, that sequence finished and, without any clear indication, I was eventually left in the middle of gameplay, with no idea of what to do next.

At this point I felt very much powerless, with the only question on my mind being whether I had access to guiding wind, a mechanic in the first game that let you see where your next objective was.

Utilising the guiding wind via an upward swipe on the touchpad, discovered via complete guesswork on my part as there was no easy way to find the controls in a readable list, did allow me to walk forward, but at some point I stopped moving and was unable to progress further.

Having been frustrated by the fact that the game kept playing the audio cue for moving downwards in a menu whilst not actually moving to any new options (likely a bug that can be patched), I was pleased to realise that saving was straightforward and uses the PS5 system UI making it accessible, once you can find the option of course.

Putting down the game and thinking I would need sighted assistance, imagine my surprise when I booted up the game again and found guiding wind to actually take me straight to what turned out to be a confrontation.

With guesswork once again allowing me to attack, pickup and throw items, I defeated all my enemies and proceed into what turned out to be a second battle, this time with a boss and some further foes.

Being unable to exit a tutorial, I had to figure out how to hit my next targets, in this case using the left stick left or right and pressing Square to throw objects worked well. Once the first enemies were taken care of, normal battle resumed.

Having to use a local AI to attempt to recognise button prompts didn’t help either, as the symbols used weren’t picked up correctly, meaning even more guesswork to even figure out how to block, which menu narration of tutorial prompts and other UI elements would easily solve.

Post-Combat

After defeating the boss, I was presented with a lengthy cutscene (which having no audio description lacks the impact it truly deserves), then eventually a prompt to open a spyglass.

This presented an interesting challenge, as I was told to plan my hunt. Though I was fearful that this is where I’d be stuck permanently, I figured out that using right stick to scan the area, much like in a sequence in The Last Of Us Part II, changed the strength of haptics and had a sound cue when I was over a point I could interact with (using R2).

After a few rounds of doing this and finding what is essentially the main objective for story progression, I was pulled out of this screen and back into the regular game, presumably to begin my journey proper.

As part of this next sequence I was actually told of the existence of guiding wind this time, but given I was riding with an entirely Japanese song playing, I couldn’t tell necessarily whether the feature was working as it had previously.

Getting to an area where the music had stopped, my objective changed to “return home”. However, the game didn’t appear to turn me to where I needed to go this time, leading to lots of fumbling around and a very lucky traversal that got me to the next sequence, keeping in mind that I was doing this all without sighted assistance.

Arrival At Objective

Having followed the instructions as best I could, I was then greeted by an NPC who seemed to want me to chase them.

Trying to pursuesaid NPC, who it turned out is the protagonist (Atsu’s) brother, highlighted a frustrating element of guiding wind; the haptics and animation take a large amount of time to play out, making it feel cumbersome to even use it as opposed to having an actual directional cue to follow, even if it is turning the camera as quickly as needed.

Given there are no interaction audio cues, I had to run around near where he was standing and talking, hoping against hope that I would be within range to press R2 or just walk into him and progress, whichever of the two methods continued the story. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long for that to happen, though I could see this being frustrating if you’d not managed to follow him successfully in the first place.

After a second similar series of interactions, I finally finished that part of the sequence, moving on to what I’ll describe as a “musical interlude”.

Playing Music

Our next objective is to play music, though the objective itself lists the name of the instrument instead. I was uncertain how this would go, but it turned out that it just involved using the touch pad, moving my finger along horizontally and releasing when the haptics were strongest, for lack of a better explanation.

After a couple of repeats of this, another cutscene played out, after which I was instructed that I could “relive the past”.

This involved me having to press and hold the bottom left corner of the touchpad when close to a shimmering audio cue, presumably the memory that I was interfacing with.

Interfacing with said memory gave me a new objective, to help at the forge.

Forging A New Path

Assisting at the forge was more confusing than I’d have hoped, though that was only because the game decided to use the controller’s accelerometer, meaning you had to raise the controller then move it down quickly much like hammering an object to hit the metal you’re working with.

After being told to inspect my work, pressing triangle and holding it allowed me to progress.

After misunderstanding the instructions and hitting the metal repeatedly without success, I backed out of that screen with Circle and was then instructed to reheat the metal. Holding square, haptics kicked in once again and on releasing it, I could hit the metal to continue the forging process.

The only other element I had to learn was that holding circle flipped the object, meaning I could hit the other side, which finally allowed me to move on.

Through various combinations of trial and error, I managed to get through this, though it was mostly the inaccessibility of the controls in terms of a readable list that made this take far longer than I’d anticipated. Do note that the above motion control elements can be turned off in the options, though that process is, as previously explained, cumbersome even with OCR.

Training

Finally, it was time to go through a combat tutorial, with guiding wind letting me get there.

This tutorial was relatively straightforward, with L1 to block and parry (though there are no easy ways to time incoming attacks aside from those that must be dodged using circle), with square and triangle being used for light and heavy strikes respectively and down on the DPad to heal.

That tutorial and the training fight over with, I discovered that I’d actually completed the prologue, something I was never able to do in the original game without assistance.

Given I don’t want to spoil anything else of the game for those who might wish to try it, I’ll leave my notes here in terms of the in-depth recap of the main story. There is, however a key issue I want to acknowledge as we move into the next section of the game I looked at:

Tracking

Being able to accessibly track an objective is something crucial that games often miss when thinking about accessibility, even if they have menu narration for example.

In the case of Yotei, the map is partly free-cursor (in that you use an analogue stick to move around the map and find your objective, though thankfully there also seems to be a left/right navigable list with the DPad as well, though this is never tutorialised at least at this point in the experience.

Tracking an objective that wasn’t the main story, I decided to go to a mountain. This was fairly straightforward once I called my horse (left on the DPad) and managed to navigate around some trees that impeded my progress a little later.

Interestingly enough, I ran into combat at a couple of points, which I was able to deal with thanks to the information I’d picked up in the tutorial.

Those small battles over with, I continued navigating, with OCR putting in the work of menu narration where it could to let me know where there were squeeze through prompts for example, though it was inconsistent.

Eventually getting to a room where traps were mentioned, I was concerned as to whether I’d be able to avoid them. It turned out I was not, though they did not instantly kill me thankfully. The thing that did kill me came when I got out of the next cutscene and was tasked with finding a house.

Finding said dwelling proved significantly more difficult due to a lack of audio cues, such as those for when you have to hook onto objects to traverse (putting me in mind of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. or when you are in front of a ledge that would kill you should you fall from it via a jump.

As much as the navigation did seem to work reasonably well before, I felt like I’d inherently soft-locked myself (i.e. put myself in a position that I couldn’t escape from), as getting down from this mountain to follow the main story was also problematic when I attempted it, unsuccessfully.

Needless to say I got sighted assistance to resolve this issue and actually scale the mountain as I’d planned to, though I really hope audio cues of some kind could be added in for traversal like this to be possible without assistance.

Ascending the Mountain

As much as guiding wind had taken me this far, the fact of the matter was that without clear audio cues to indicate traversal (such as hooking onto objects, running jumps or even directional wall climbs), I would’ve had real trouble scaling the mountain unaided. Even when I managed it with assistance, I would not be able to find collectables on the ground to interact with as part of progression for this side mission.

Once I succeeded at this and got into dialogue with our objective in the form of an NPC, I was presented with something I hadn’t seen before in the form of a dialogue choice. How much these select lines of dialogue (activated with a quick time event-style button press of a face button prompted on screen) actually matter is yet to be seen, but the game did select a default choice after several seconds had elapsed.

The biggest hurdle was actually when it came to some training-related interactions, namely slicing coals and bamboo strikes, the latter a returning element from the first game.

Timing striking the coals was a matter of practice as you could hear burning objects coming at you to an extent, though it was rather though luck than judgement that I passed this.

The Bamboo on the other hand was a tricky proposition, as the buttons needed to be rapidly pressed in sequence are indicated on screen and by default there is a time limit in which to press them. Given I failed at these in places myself, I can definitely see these being a blocker for some, though you can remove the time requirement in the accessibility settings much like in the first game.

Through the rest of the sequence, having various instances where there was no objective meant that I would’ve been unable to progress without assistance, sadly, though hopefully objectives for these can be patched in at a later time.

One highlight I will acknowledge is that when you switch between weapons (specifically a single and dual Katana in this case), the sound cues for doing so are slightly different. It would be great to see those cues or similar ones employed when such a switch is required for the most effective combat strategy, similar to what is seen in God Of War Ragnarok’s audio setup.

Having completed that side quest and really enjoyed it, I was taken back to normal gameplay, but having unlocked a new objective, I could press left or right on the map screen to move between my next potential goals, including this new one, much like previous interactions with that screen. Sadly, fast travel was still unavailable, but at least I knew that if I wanted to go somewhere, I could at least get part of the way there, in theory.

Speaking of goals:

Types Of Maps

Whereas the vast majority of games have one singular map, potentially with its icons able to be sorted by category such as in Spider-Man 2 with its mission and activity lists, Ghost Of Yotei takes a different approach, unlocking skill upgrade opportunities via means of what it describes as Traveller’s Maps.

These can be seemingly earned mostly through a cartographer character you meet on your journey and can be purchased much like other items, which sounds completely reasonable. What is frustrating however, is that once you press square on the map screen to view your traveller’s maps via the associated submenu, after picking a map, you are then tasked with visually placing it over the main world map.

Map Of The Problematique

Understandably, placing a map via a free cursor method is difficult enough without assistance, let alone having multiple of them to repeat the task with. The most frustrating part of this whole ordeal is that, from what I could find during my investigations, there appears to be no way to get past this placement tutorial or exit the map screen until you place one.

This means, in practice, that the only way to actually leave the map screen and resume gameplay is to:

• close the game down fully and re-open it (which returns you to the world) and avoid the map screen and other related areas entirely)
• get sighted assistance (which a fair number of people likely won’t have in the first place)

or

• just not engage with the old inn questline where you meet the cartographer at all, which could mean you don’t get important upgrades later on for example.

Of course, none of these options are ideal and if I find a way to get around this process that would allow me to progress without assistance and not have to avoid the map screen short of just not picking up a map, I’ll update this review.

Sound, Music and Acting

The score for Ghost Of yotei is not what you might expect from a title like this, instead sounding closer to a western (with guitars as a key component alongside other culturally appropriate instrumentation in combination). The sound design is impactful and punchy, with the game’s quiet ambience also feeling peaceful and calming.

When the score does appear during these quieter areas, it doesn’t feel any less out of place, further allowing you to immerse yourself in the game’s atmosphere.

The English acting also conveys emotion well, whilst simultaneously channelling the appropriately dramatic aesthetic too, holding the whole game together in just the right way to keep you both invested and interested in seeing where the various characters end up on their respective journeys.

All in all, in terms of these key aspects, Yotei is a great sequel to a title that had an equally brilliant audio landscape.

Summary

Pros

• Camera turning towards objective is included as an option, removing a barrier from the first game even if you do have to turn it on first.
• Other accessibility options, including removing timing element to bamboo strikes, return or are present, opening up the game for even more players
• Great sound design and score, as well as solid acting performances

Cons

• No menu narration at all, meaning OCR will be required constantly.
• Lacking audio cues, audio description and other key accessibility features seen in other Sony titles, meaning that sighted assistance is required for the best experience
• Travellers map tutorial prompts cannot be dismissed, meaning that you have to close and re-open the game if you need to go into the map screen for anything else.

Conclusions

Ghost Of Yotei had the potential to be a vastly more accessible experience than its predecessor. However, for whatever reason, the title could be seen to have taken a singular lesson as its main improvement in the form of guiding wind moving the camera automatically. Whilst it is a great step forward arguably, that in itself is not enough and though I had high hopes for this game, sadly this pre-launch review experience did have its frustrating moments as a result.

I cannot with any confidence recommend this to any gamers without sight who do not have sighted assistance, even if they wish to dive into what is likely a visually stunning, rich, immersive world. Lacking menu and UI narration as well as having issues with its navigational assist, in addition to a lack of important audio cues, this game misses several integral features that would mean I and others could experience an epic adventure solo on our own terms.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my time with the game, I loved what I’ve been able to play so far, it was just a shame that I needed assistance when the game is relatively close to being potentially playable. I hope that Sucker Punch are provided the resources, budget and time that are needed to turn this into a fully accessible Japanese adventure and, if not for this game, I hope that requirement can extend to future entries as well.

All the same, I am pleased with where this game has progressed accessibility in the series and look forward to seeing what future updates might bring.

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