Director Yotei's ghost reveals efforts to respect the Ainu indigenous peoples of Japan
Blog Andrew Joseph 20 Jun , 2025 0
exist New entry On Sony's official PlayStation blog, Sucker Punch Productions' co-creator Nate Fox gives more insight into the research that the ghost of the Yotei team brought to Japan. Following from his previous PlayStation blog contributions (more here), Fox once again highlighted the team’s commitment to portraying Japan in a respectful way, this time focusing on their efforts to represent Ainu culture.
Ainu is an indigenous people from northern Japan, especially the northernmost island of Hokkaido, which provides ghosts for the Yotei environment. Their language, culture, beliefs, and traditions are significantly different from Amato (also known as Wajin), the main race of the vast majority of the population of Japan today.
The ghost of Yotei is at a critical point in history – 1603 was the year of Tokugawa Shogunate, composed of Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of Japan's great unification, ended decades of the civil war. Edo (now Tokyo) became the center of power in Japan, ushering in a peaceful Edo period in Japan's culture and society. However, at this time, Hokkaido is still a wild, sparsely populated island, which is the residence of Ainu, whose huge winter snow and solid landscape make it a difficult place to live.
“When setting up a game in Hokkaido, we knew that key elements were doing our best to represent Ainu culture in a respectful way,” Nate Fox explained. “Thankfully, we connected with the Ainu culture consultant before we started the reference party journey.” Not only that, the consultant invited them to meet with her family, which led to the ghost of the Yotei team, reaching the veggies on the mountain. “It's a great way to make new friends and start a journey to learn Ainu culture. That night, we were determined to forage our new game and we hope players can share (our) experiences.”
According to Fox, the ghost of the Yotei team spent part of the study on the Oshima Peninsula, the southern part of Hokkaido and the closest to Japan’s main island Honshu. In the 1600s, it was the territory of the Matsumae clan, and the Tokugawa government would acquire exclusive rights to trade with the Ainu, which resided in the north. Fox observed that even today, this time, the territory of mainland Japanese people rarely lives anywhere north of Oshima. He noted, “In other parts of the island, cherry trees are spread on the peninsula, but not uncommon in other parts of the island.
“We try to imitate this quality in the game, leaning towards the wilderness between homesteads.” This solid wilderness will provide revenge for the protagonist Atsu who killed her family.
Fox and the team also went to the Nibutani Ainu Museum with their Ainu cultural consultant. Traditional Ainu houses (called Seth) is different from traditional Japanese houses. The Museum Tour “does really help us understand the various objects we see in the game and how to use them.”
In Yotei's official release date trailer, we can glimpse the interior of the Ainu house with a large central fireplace (near the 2-minute mark). The heroine ATSU is talking to her in this scene, and it seems to be Ainu because she has a lip tattoo. Later, the Japanese government suppressed this symbol of beauty in the late 1800s, and after that, it had completely annexed Hokkaido (Source: Source: Japanese Embassy in the UK). At that time, measures to force Ainu to abandon his language and culture and integrate into Japanese society were in full swing.
(As a side note, JK Goodrich's 1888 account Ainu's house depicts a first-hand picture of contrasting, and the relationship between Ainu and Japanese is currently complex. )
Fox also talked about the time the Yotei team spent studying the Japanese period, which brought them to Nikko Toshogu in Japan, a shrine dedicated to unification of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, which began the Edo period. “While there, we received the blessing of the match from the so-called god, Tokugawa Ieyasu.” They proudly showed off the EMA (wooden sign) and Omamori (protective charm) they received from Nikko Toshogu, a reminder of their trip on the research table.
“Although our Hokkaido version is fictional, the realism we strive to create stems from these real world experiences,” Fox explained in a reflection on the research journey. It's interesting to see how the ghost of Yotei portrays the contrast between Wajin/Edo culture and Ainu.
Verity Townsend is a Japanese freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for Game News website Automaton West. She also wrote articles about Japanese culture and film for various publications.