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[Topher]

Ghost of Yotei is set to release in just a couple of weeks amid all the controversy surrounding it. While most PlayStation sequels have seen a tremendous increase in budgets, their upcoming title will change the tradition.

According to Sucker Punch's co-founder, Ghost of Yotei has a similar budget to that of Ghost of Tsushima, and it also had almost the same number of developers working on it, with the same development time.

Why it matters: Previously, we have seen that PlayStation bumps the sequel budgets of its hit titles to a ridiculous amount, but considering the financial situation and inflation, it has decided to keep the scope similar this time.

In an interview with Game File (paywalled), Brian Fleming talked about how Ghost of Yotei had a very similar development timeline to that of its predecessor. Ghost of Tsushima cost around $60 million, so the sequel also had a similar budget.

This is a huge step in a different direction, as the budgets used to be huge. For context, Marvel's Spider-Man had a budget of $90 million, and with Spider-Man 2, it was bumped up to $300 million. Similar trends were seen with The Last of Us and Horizon.

So, on average, we saw a budget increase of over 200% with older sequels, which isn't the case anymore. This could be because many major companies are changing their approaches and decreasing budgets.

If a game that costs $300 million fails, it costs the company a lot. While not a single-player game, we saw this when Concord failed. Since then, Sony has been more considerate about budget and its game development policies.

Ghost of Yotei Budget Almost The Same As Predecessor Unlike Other PlayStation Sequels

Sucker Punch says Ghost of Yotei budget is similar to its predecessor, unlike other PlayStation sequels that got a massive budget increase.

tech4gamers.com

---

Source is the paywalled Game File interview with Sucker Punch

The Sucker Punch interview

Ahead of PlayStation’s biggest release of 2025, Ghost of Yotei, I chatted with Sucker Punch studio co-founder Brian Fleming: talking Ghost, Sony deals, sequel-making and the elephants in the room

www.gamefile.news

 

[squidilix]

Damn WTF happen to the Marvel Spider-Man budget? non-sense even with the Marvel Fee.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Wow, you could never tell by looking at it!

 

[Mister Wolf]

It shows.

 

[metareferential]

Well, it shows.

Sony's reliance on old-gen tech is just a cost-saving measure. Gamers don't mind, it seems.

 

[The_Observer]

Based on what we saw, it should be even less.

 

[Gaiff]

Wow, you could never tell by looking at it!

Based on what we saw, it should be even less.

 

[kruis]

Sucker Punch saved sooo much money by not upgrading their custom engine for the PS5 with the hottest next gen features. This game will run wonderfully on any handheld.

 

[Generic]

And that's a good thing.

 

[Trilobit]

If a game that costs $300 million fails, it costs the company a lot. While not a single-player game, we saw this when Concord failed. Since then, Sony has been more considerate about budget and its game development policies.

Considering how some of their studios are now valuing wokeness over sales *cough* Insomniac *cough* it's no wonder they've become apprehensive. I wouldn't want to take any big risks either.

 

[Ar¢tos]

Same budget, same amount of devs, same assets, same animations, same nearly everything with a MC reskin + pointless dog and new weapons that the MC stores and retrieves from an unnamed body cavity.

 

[Shubh_C63]

It feels unfair how Sony is being compared to a much higher standard than other companies.
Another same FarCry and Assassins Creed for years and it still keeps on selling, with some fans even claiming how their favorite ACs were copy & pasted ones.

GoY looks fine even with that budget. Meanwhile, what game is coming close to this offering ?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

by the looks of it.... I could say that it even had a lower budget. and if they scraped a game before yotei... are we seeing a 3 year game or a troubled game fixed with duct tape?.... regardless, PlayStation should be very proud at how things have gone with this piece of propaganda.

 

[Zuzu]

Well that explains why it looks so graphically average

 

[DevilHunterX0]

DEI banners are expensive.

 

[Vlodril]

"Companies should keep budgets low we don't need them to be so big" average gaffer. This game does that. "Well it shows. It looks like crap.. Look at the puddle" etc etc.

 

[Sticks]

Spiderman 2's woke budget is crazy

 

[metareferential]

It feels unfair how Sony is being compared to a much higher standard than other companies.
Another same FarCry and Assassins Creed for years and it still keeps on selling, with some fans even claiming how their favorite ACs were copy & pasted ones.

GoY looks fine even with that budget. Meanwhile, what game is coming close to this offering ?

Oh come on.

We're talking about a sequel on a new system, from a first party dev. Imagine if TLoU 2 ended up looking just like the first game.

And you're delusional if you think the same doesn't apply to anyone in the industry (and you chose the wrong example: Assassin's Creed always tries to push the tech. Shadows shits on Yotei every day of the week as far as tech goes).

 

[pulicat]

Yeah it looks it could be running on Switch 1 without any problems.

 

[Shubh_C63]

Oh come on.

We're talking about a sequel on a new system, from a first party dev. Imagine if TLoU 2 ended up looking just like the first game.

And you're delusional if you think the same doesn't apply to anyone in the industry (and you chose the wrong example: Assassin's Creed always tries to push the tech. Shadows shits on Yotei every day of the week as far as tech goes).

Shadow doesn't exactly shits on GoY and that was after multiple copy & pasted games that Ubi finally went on to innovate. Shadow looks (lets not talk about gameplay) good, but the situation you are right is a bummer.

My point is, what other 100M$ game is GoY is competing against that offers it better ? They are still offering the best deal than the rest.
We got no GoY clone out there doing things better when story, gameplay, exploration, graphics, music etc are accounted for.

 

[owandeseis]

"Companies should keep budgets low we don't need them to be so big" average gaffer. This game does that. "Well it shows. It looks like crap.. Look at the puddle" etc etc.

Maybe, if these companies not only reduced the budget of their projects but the MSRP too, people wouldn't complain, i don't remember people crying about Expedition 33 graphics, but that game was 55€, same goes for that Mafia game released a couple months ago.

 

[Bojji]

It feels unfair how Sony is being compared to a much higher standard than other companies.
Another same FarCry and Assassins Creed for years and it still keeps on selling, with some fans even claiming how their favorite ACs were copy & pasted ones.

GoY looks fine even with that budget. Meanwhile, what game is coming close to this offering ?

Ubisoft is usually pushing graphics and technology in their games. Sony (until recently) was exactly the same, jumps from UC1 to UC2 (same platform!) and from UC3 to UC4 were big, GOW was a great looking game on PS4, LoU2 still looks good. Even Ghost of Tsushima was a good looking PS4 title with very impressive art and load times.

Sucker Punch itself pushed tech quite extensively with Infamous games on PS4, run First Light on PS5 and it still looks impressive with HDR.

But with Yotei we get AA quality for AAAA price. This game should be 50$ max.

 

[coachmcguirk91]

Hopefully they make up for it in gameplay

 

[metareferential]

My point is, what other 100M$ game is GoY is competing against that offers it better ? They are still offering the best deal than the rest.
We got no GoY clone out there doing things better when story, gameplay, exploration, graphics, music etc are accounted for.

I'm not arguing about that. I don't like those games.

As a PS owner I expect the big games coming out on the console to actually use the new hardware in a visible way. Especially so considering the price tag (and the existence of the Pro).

 

[Killer8]

I don't see how it could have the same number of people working on it and have the same budget. Did Sucker Punch not get any pay rise since 2020?

 

[Fake]

Looks like a PS4 game, so thats make sense.

 

[kazuyamishima]

$60m. was the budget for the first game, they only need to sell around 1.5m. to be profitable.

 

[XERXES_89]

If this is what a small studio like SP can offer, a rip-off of another AAA productions from bigger studios, then whats the point of having a "small" AAA studio in the first place? Don't make a derivative open world; make something else, something different. Whats the difference between keeping 100 or 200 people during 7 years to make a AAA and keeping 300 or 400 and release the game earlier?

 

[Pop]

Well looks the same as the first one maybe a little worse

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

It feels unfair how Sony is being compared to a much higher standard than other companies.
Another same FarCry and Assassins Creed for years and it still keeps on selling, with some fans even claiming how their favorite ACs were copy & pasted ones.

GoY looks fine even with that budget. Meanwhile, what game is coming close to this offering ?

Did you see the Sekiro animation comparisons in the other thread? Better enemy hit reaction animations in a six-year old game targeting much weaker hardware, with enemy animations actually reacting to the direction your sword strikes them.

Also as to why SIE's AAA are held to higher standard...it's because for at least since Uncharted, they generally led the industry in terms of graphics, animation, and/or production value for third-person cinematic AAA games. They were the ones to beat.

This gen, feels like quite a lot of studios have caught up to that standard. And for a scant few in particular, arguably surpassed them. Or most of them anyway; HFW: Burning Shores is still a master class in terms of technical visual proficiency, animation, production value and scale (especially for the final boss fight). But the other 1P stuff this gen have comparable equivalents from other 3P and in some instances, 3P alternatives beat SIE's output on those metrics.

 

[The_hunter]

Surprised the budget is only 60m.

 

[Shmunter]

Powered by the laughter of autistic children

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

ps4 game

 

[Gonzito]

Judging by the graphics I believe this. In fact I dont see a reason why this game wouldn't release on ps4

 

[Saber]

Well to be fair this doesn't look any different from GoT, except they put a monster that identifies as a women as a main character.
But I at least commend to them for not extrapole with high budgets this time.

 

[Astray]

Ghost of Yotei is set to release in just a couple of weeks amid all the controversy surrounding it. While most PlayStation sequels have seen a tremendous increase in budgets, their upcoming title will change the tradition.

According to Sucker Punch's co-founder, Ghost of Yotei has a similar budget to that of Ghost of Tsushima, and it also had almost the same number of developers working on it, with the same development time.

Why it matters: Previously, we have seen that PlayStation bumps the sequel budgets of its hit titles to a ridiculous amount, but considering the financial situation and inflation, it has decided to keep the scope similar this time.

In an interview with Game File (paywalled), Brian Fleming talked about how Ghost of Yotei had a very similar development timeline to that of its predecessor. Ghost of Tsushima cost around $60 million, so the sequel also had a similar budget.

This is a huge step in a different direction, as the budgets used to be huge. For context, Marvel's Spider-Man had a budget of $90 million, and with Spider-Man 2, it was bumped up to $300 million. Similar trends were seen with The Last of Us and Horizon.

So, on average, we saw a budget increase of over 200% with older sequels, which isn't the case anymore. This could be because many major companies are changing their approaches and decreasing budgets.

If a game that costs $300 million fails, it costs the company a lot. While not a single-player game, we saw this when Concord failed. Since then, Sony has been more considerate about budget and its game development policies.

Ghost of Yotei Budget Almost The Same As Predecessor Unlike Other PlayStation Sequels

Sucker Punch says Ghost of Yotei budget is similar to its predecessor, unlike other PlayStation sequels that got a massive budget increase.

tech4gamers.com

---

Source is the paywalled Game File interview with Sucker Punch

The Sucker Punch interview

Ahead of PlayStation’s biggest release of 2025, Ghost of Yotei, I chatted with Sucker Punch studio co-founder Brian Fleming: talking Ghost, Sony deals, sequel-making and the elephants in the room

www.gamefile.news

This is why this game will be a success no matter how many boycotts happen.

Keeping costs controlled means a significant reduction in downside risk.

 

[MayauMiao]

On the bright side, its still cheaper than Concordia.

 

[Abysse]

This is why this game will be a success no matter how many boycotts happen.

Keeping costs controlled means a significant reduction in downside risk.

And it will probably receive inflated high scores for a basic open-world game. I'll be surprised if the opposite happens.

 

[Bojji]

On the bright side, its still cheaper than Concordia.

Concord (and other GaaS shit) is one of the reasons why budget of this game was on a smaller side. Intergalactic is only high budget game Sony had announced, other than that we have Wolverine that is in development for a long time (so maybe it has high cost as well).

 

[nial]

Concord (and other GaaS shit) is one of the reasons why budget of this game was on a smaller side. Intergalactic is only high budget game Sony had announced, other than that we have Wolverine that is in development for a long time (so maybe it has high cost as well).

It isn't, budget of the first game was already pretty damn low in comparison to TLOU2 coming out at the same time.

 

[Trilobit]

Surprised the budget is only 60m.

Even more so when you realize that half of the budget went to sensitivity training, safe spaces and xanax.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Also have I heard right that the wolf companion can't actually be controlled? Like, ever?

If so, that is astounding. So it basically just shows up whenever they want, and they just act randomly? How is that possible? That's less control than the wolf companion you had in Shadow Dancer on the SEGA Genesis!!

 

[nial]

Probably only needs 3M (or even less) to be profitable, damn.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

It feels unfair how Sony is being compared to a much higher standard than other companies.
Another same FarCry and Assassins Creed for years and it still keeps on selling, with some fans even claiming how their favorite ACs were copy & pasted ones.

GoY looks fine even with that budget. Meanwhile, what game is coming close to this offering ?

Then, don't charge the same price. That's why it's being compared.

Anyway, having a budget under 100M is the right call in most occasions.

 

[Hugare]

Creating an IP should be much more expensive than creating a sequel

You already have the concept, world, mechanics, combat, a lot already in place

Spider-Man 2 costing more than 3 times the amount of the first game is ridiculous, for example. How? Why?

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Sony finally being smart, for once. Dial that shit back and stop wasting money. I approve.

 

[Generic]

The mostly negative reaction ITT is the reason the budget of games keep ballooning.

 

[SJRB]

Lol

Lmao, even.

 

[rm082e]

So if it's the same budget, same project timeline, and the same number of people, that sounds like they're spending less money on the employees given inflation? If that's true, that would mean as people left the studio, they replaced them with lower paid people?

 

[Von Hugh]

5 million in development costs, 55 million in bonuses to the management.