The year is 1230. Kublai Khan has fallen. The Empire is falling apart due to civil war. A single warrior on a battlefield goes home, having served his generals honorably. He attempts to retire peacefully, keeping his skills sharp so he can raise his sons to be great horsemen and warriors while they hunt for their food.
The Lin Kuei- Chinese assassins, attack his family in the dead of night, slaughtering them to a one and making sure he sees them die before they leave him alive to tell the tale: That all who served in the Mongol Armies would suffer the same fates. One of them reveals his face- a younger, but spitting image of a man he had dueled and defeated on the battlefield. Obviously his son, seeking revenge, many years later.
The man buries his family before then seeking out this shadowy group of killers. The people are scared to speak, or even outright hostile (sympathizers and associates of the Lin Kuei). Eventually the man finds writings that pertain to them, and he takes a year to learn how to read Chinese before discovering that half the text is written in another language entirely.
Following the clues he can decipher and rumors he picks up on, he comes across a “ghost” that seeks peace in a quiet place. This man speaks to our protagonist in an unfamiliar language, but allows him to come forth. After conversing in Mongolian, the Ghosts name is learned- Jin Sakai.
Our protagonist tells his story and stays with Jin, who advises him to seek peace and to put war behind him. He learns how to read and speak Japanese and as he does so, he reads more of the text and discovers that Jin taught the original Lin Kuei- to fight back against the Mongols before they became a murderous criminal organization.
He approaches Jin in rage, and demands an answer. Jin is unable to give him a satisfactory one and offers his own life, should our protagonist wish to take it. Instead, he demands to be taught so that he can seek revenge for the murder of his family. Jin refuses, saying that road leads only to ruin and sorrow.
“I already know ruin and sorrow! Your honor demands you train me that I may seek justice!”- Said in perfect Japanese, in a tone that causes Jin to remember Lord Shimura, his uncle, whom he had to forsake in his quest.
Jin agrees, and offers to help gather information on the ones who killed his family. But first, the man must dig his own grave and complete a haiku on Loss.
This could be the lengthy, story driven start to a great sequel to Ghost of Tsushima that would open up the map for the storytellers to bring in more historical inspiration from the time of the Mongol Empire occupying China. You would play as a character that would have to grapple with the moral dilemma of taking down a group of assassins that targeted your family, but largely are working to try and kill the Mongol leaders in their own bid for freedom.
You may come across corrupt bureaucrats and soldiers who abuse their powers in a manner that would never be allowed. You may even come across Mongol patrols that are being ambushed by Lin Kuei or even just bandits. In the end, you will have to pick sides in the decision of who, if anyone, to support.
These decisions could lead to confrontations with Jin, who abides by his word to assist you in seeking justice for your family, but warns you that your path may well lead to a bad end. You could even have a romantic interest that wants to get married and have children.
The point is that this could have been a sequel that had a new character, but kept it tied to the original and let Jins story continue while giving the developers room to do new things. The cultural landscape to pull from would be exponentially widened as a result also. The amount of culture and history that could be shown and experienced is immense. And this was spit balled by a “problematic” White Male Gamer who just happened to love Ghost of Tsushima and enjoyed the various things you could discover and learn about Mongol Culture.
Instead, Sucker Punch Studios chose to swap out Jin Sakai with a girl boss character that nobody cared about. They give her weapons and abilities that nobody can believe, rather than focusing on the ways that a female assassin would have gotten close to her targets and the challenges she would face. Then they hired Erika Ishii- a known and outspoken Antifa activist who has proudly acknowledged in interviews that she has gone off script and demanded her ideologically motivated alterations be put into the script.
And all this to tell a story of seeking revenge that sounds like someone was told to come up with a Japanese story for a game last second since they were replacing the main character with a woman (because “the future is female”) and rather than do some real research, they got blasted on white claws and THC gummies while watching Kill Bill in an emergency last minute cram sesh.
As an even bigger insult, Erika Ishii is then also used as the model for the main character, despite the Japanese voice actress (Fairouz Ai) being more attractive and having done actual cosplays (as opposed to the “what if the male anime character was actually a butch lesbian” ones that Erika Ishii does) and being considered attractive. Or the company could have just had a separate model for the animations- a quick one minute google search brought up Risako Tanabe- a Japanese fitness influencer who actually CAN perform the athletic and acrobatic movements demanded of the protagonist of this game.
Heck, they could even have gone the Stellar Blade route and just had a hot woman be the model for the game. But they didn’t. They chose to use the butch lesbian antifa activist. This is because the modern gayming industry hates straight white men and this is meant to contribute to the Tanyafication of women in gaming.
The “male gaze” must be subverted because women in real life can’t be busty and attractive. This is the view of the absolute hags and fags that push this on Gamers through their various “consulting groups” (see- Sweet Baby Inc).
Now, Erika has some bangers on her resume that show why she should be the face of the sequel to Sucker Punches latest game. After all, it’s not like they are going to do anything with Sly Cooper or Infamous. Nope, lets put the butch lesbian antifa into everyones faces when what they wanted was more Jin Sakai.
Her impressive resume includes:
Date Everything (you wanna date the personification of your sex toys? Erika’s got you covered.)
Minds Eye (that game did wonderfully)
Mortal Kombat 1 (the Red Robot Ninja is now a chick. Imagine that)
Dragon Age: the Veilguard (If you chose to suffer through that game where you could not be mean to your companions and had to be lectured on how you had to conform to their mental instability)
Critical Role (this show has both invigorated interest in Dungeons and Dragons while also bring in the absolute blight of the “modern audience” to the beloved hobby)
Dimension 20- (all I know on this is she got to say Fuck Terfs to resounding agreement with her equally mentally stable castmates. Theoretically because how dare a biological woman have a view on womens rights).
Suicide Squat: Kill the Justice League (Ms. Freeze- bet you didn’t see that coming, eh? We went from Ahnold making bad ice puns to lesbian pride with frosted tips and no real backstory).
Starfield (Bethesdas absolute best gayme. I love a game where it’s all French Niggers in Space.)
Stray Gods: the Roleplaying Musical (something that captured my interest for a mere moment and then immediately killed it)
Sainst Row (the awful reboot, where she played the role of an inexperienced robber who needs a mentor. All as part of the criminal venture for Let’s Pretend (the only thing she tries to be good at, but demands everyone else concede to her delusions))
The Last of Us 2 (the game so good it had to keep being remade. No, stop asking how people really feel about it, just trust us that it was absolutely imperative that the director do a self insert where he bangs the tranny)
Now this is just a smattering of her works that I can speak to from my own knowledge. While she has an extensive resume of things she has played bit parts in, she seems to keep being pushed into projects where her particular ideology is not only being championed, but used as an active poisonous agent that ruins projects for the sake of diversity, inclusion, and fighting fascism or whatever buzzwords these types use to manipulate marketing teams into getting their ways (again, see Sweet Baby Inc).
Now of course, this isn’t all on Erika Ishii. She just happens to be the extremely unattractive face of this debacle. Developers for Sucker Punch also recently made some comments about the assassination of Charlie Kirk that got them into hot water… comments they finally acted on after waiting to see which way the wind blew and then rather quietly removing the individual and making a mealy mouthed weak sauce statement in an interview about their stance on the subject of political violence. All while multiple people in the studio supported the posts on bluesky. But honestly, that is all just sprinkles on the shit sundae that is Ghost of Yotei- a game that looks to have the bones of a great game, but then had it’s skin torn off and now has this activist garbage draped over it instead.
This game is Non-Buy-Nary for me, as it should be for all real Gamers out there. If you really feel the need to play it, just wait until it ends up being free or damn near. Vote with your dollar and don’t support a company that has shown in all of it’s actions through the development of this game, that it hates you.
I will be playing Ghost of Tsushima in the meantime and enjoying the story of Jin Sakai- a straight patriarchal man who fights and drives off the foreigners from his homeland. If Jin Sakai existed in the modern world, Erika Ishii and those of her ilk that have infected Sucker Punch and the gaming industry would want to see him dead. Men and Gamers like me would welcome and celebrate him.