Heartwarming

At the press of a button, you can send Atsu instantaneously into a childhood flashback. You’re standing in the exact same location, but you’ve travelled back in time to Atsu’s younger years when her parents were still alive. In the blink of an eye, you’re back in those happier days.

It’s a neat trick, and one that we can imagine lots of other games trying to emulate in future. For example, It would work super well for the Star Wars Jedi games, where the lead character already senses ‘echoes’ of the past.

On the eve of the Yōtei’s launch, we had the chance to ask Nate Fox, one of the game’s directors, about the thinking behind this feature and how it is even possible. So, what was thinking behind the flashbacks?

In Fox’s words: “We really want players to be able to experience Atsu’s youth. You know, why does she love her mum so much, who just hen-pecks her to keep practicing her shamisen. Or her dad, you know, making dad jokes. The kind of things that you can relate to, so that, when Atsu is furious about the life that was stolen from her, you understand.

“And because it’s a video game, of course, you get to play the thing. And I don’t know you, when you play video games, I tend to say, like, ‘Oh, I died on that level’. You are the character. And that’s a great thing about games, right? That they’re immersive on that level, that is unique.”

This seamless cutting into Atsu’s early years, as we assumed, was it by any chance made possible by the Solid State Drive in the console itself?

“You’re right,” Fox told us. “It is, in fact, because of the power of the SSD on the PlayStation 5 that we can have, effectively, the level loaded twice.

“And early on, we wanted to do that for the exact reason I was just talking about, so that players would be in charge of being able to go from this kind of sad, cold, lonely reality that she starts as, she’s a lone wolf, and then effortlessly go back into that moment of remembering what this place was like, when it was when it was warm.”

Fox added an interesting question: “Have you ever had the experience of going back to your parents’ house and walking into the bedroom you grew up in, and whether you like it or not, memories come to you?

“That’s what we were going for, right? That whether you like it or not, the past is still real, alive in your mind. And it seemed like a thing that would be cool to put into a game.”

Indeed, it is cool. And unlike the studio’s previous game, Ghost of Tsushima, Yōtei is not launching on PS4. And this heartwarming feature isn’t the only upgrade you’ll see because of that. So, what else was made possible in the new game by stepping away from the old hardware?

Fox explained: “It’s great to be able to target one piece of hardware and go deep on it, particularly the DualSense controller, which, to me, is unbelievably cool. It does things that couldn’t have didn’t occur 10 years ago, right?

“Haptics change your experience playing video games – instead of just sight and sound, you can feel things. Have you ever given your DualSense controller to somebody who doesn’t play games, and they jump when the controller moves a little bit? And they’re freaked out. It’s like, ‘Oh, this is possessed by a ghost’, you know? Because they’re not used to the game or media of any kind kind of coming at them through those vectors. It’s really cool.

“And so, by virtue of being just on PlayStation 5, we can really pour energy into making sure things like the controller get the attention they deserve.”

Fox then offered up some specific examples of DualSense features in the game: “One of my favourites is you start a fire by kind of, oh yeah, making a spark with some flint. And it’s just simply swiping up on the touch pad. But because what you do immediately represents the thing that would happen, while doing the flint, it feels like you’re doing the flint.

“Is this a major challenge in the game? No, it is not. It’s just to make you feel immersed. And I appreciate that the controller can let players have this small experience that’s real. And of course, we use it in all sorts of other ways, like Sumi-e painting, or feeling the clash of swords with the haptics.

“It all adds up. But I like that we have the flexibility to let players encounter gameplay from a bunch of different formats.”

Another example is forging a sword by physically moving the controller up and down. As Fox puts it, “By just kind of doing a basic hammering action, you make that heated metal get flattened out as you stamp out a sword. I don’t know if you’ve ever fantasised about making a katana?”

In Fox’s words, “It’s all part of the fantasy.” And the tech inside the PS5 really helps it feel like you’re living out that fantasy.

Ghost of Yōtei is out now on PS5 and you can order your copy here.

Check out the rest of this interview on the Radio Times Gaming YouTube channel.

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